NYT-Maliki signing oil deals with China and Russia

[OregonBlue]

By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
Published: August 19, 2008

BAGHDAD — Iraq is on the verge of reviving an 11-year-old contract with China worth $1.2 billion, its largest oil deal since the invasion in 2003, an Oil Ministry official said Tuesday.

The deal sets new terms for an agreement reached between China and Iraq under Saddam Hussein in 1997. Unlike that agreement, which included production-sharing rights, the new one is a service contract, under which China would be paid for its work at the Ahdab oil field southeast of Baghdad but would not be a partner in the profits.

Hussein al-Shahristani, Iraq’s oil minister, is expected to complete the negotiations when he is in China late this week or early next week, said a ministry official who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the news media. Mr. Shahristani was in Poland with other ministry officials to study its oil industry, the official said.

In an interview that appeared Tuesday on al-Noor, an Iraqi news Web site, Mr. Shahristani said Iraq had decided that the original contract, with the China National Petroleum Corporation, was valid but open to negotiation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/world/middleeast/20oil.html

Way to go. We spend trillions and they get the oil.

[stillcool]

1. uh-oh...

bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran(q)

[gatorboy]

2. Well, that was a waste of time, eh?

We're on the ropes and China and Russia know it. Get ready for the squeeeeeze.