Inner City Press
Global Inner Cities Report - March 30, 2006 [Revised as indicated on March
31, 2006]
Iraq's Oil to be Metered by Shell,
While Basrah Project Remains Less than Clear, As Does the UN Global Compact
BYLINE: Matthew Russell Lee, Inner City Press U.N.
Correspondent
UNITED NATIONS, March 30 -- From Iraq's
Mission to the UN, there's finally been an answer to the months-old oil metering
mystery. Shell has been given the contract, and it will take from one to two
years to implement. How the accountability of oil flows and sales until then
will be tracked has not yet been addressed, nor has why it will take two years.
For an oil port in Basrah, the process will be faster, but it remains unclear
which company has been awarded the work. [Editor's note: click
here for
Reuters article on this.]
Meanwhile at the UN on Thursday, Kofi Annan met with
the chairman of Turkish conglomerate with a joint venture with Shell; the
Turkish magnate was not available for questions, not even on challenge to the
Shell joint venture in the EU Court of Human Rights. Such corporate access was
discussed (or confessed) by an author who visited the UN Correspondents
Association on Thursday, predicting a world made better one CEO-in-a-hot-tub at
a time (see review below).
-- Jean-Pierre Halbwachs
briefing reporters on 12/28/05
In a March 22 letter provided to Inner
City Press on March 30 by the staffer from the Office of the Spokesman for the
Secretary General who had responded to Inner City Press' repeated questions with
an assurance that he would ask IAMB and forward their answers [editor's note:
click here
for Reuters' informative earlier article on this], the UN's Jean-Pierre Halbwachs was informed that
"the Iraqi
Ministry of Oil has concluded an agreement with the American Project and
Contracting Office (PCO) to include a project for rebuilding the metering system
in the Basrah oil port of the Southern Oil State Company, as part of the other
projects that are funded by the American grant to the Iraqi Ministry of Oil.
This project is in progress now and is expected to be finalized by 2006.
Furthermore, a preliminary agreement was reached with the Shell Group to act as
a consultant to the Iraqi Ministry of Oil on matters related to metering and
calibrating which would include the establishment of a measuring system for the
flow of oil, gas and related products within Iraq, as well as the export and
import operations. This long-term development project will be implemented in
stages that may be fulfilled in one or two years."
This follows a December 2005 statement
by the International Advisory and Monitoring Board for the Development Fund for
Iraq that the oil metering contract had been awarded to an American firm,
followed by a January 2006 IAMB statement that nothing was being done. Now named
are a Dutch-based company and a "project" agreed to by the U.S. Pentagon's
Project and Contracting Office, recently in the news for its dealing with
Halliburton.
The term in the letter, "Southern Oil
State Company," does not result in any hits either via the Google search engine
nor (Academic) Lexis.
Inner City Press has put written questions to both IAMB and Iraq's
Mission to the United Nations and will report results on this site.
The above-quoted letter is signed by Iraq's Alternate Permanent
Representative to the UN Feisal Amin Al-Istrabadi,
described as
"an American lawyer of Iraqi origin." Click
here
for his curriculum vitae, via Depaul's law school -- his legal practice
has been in Indiana, although the c.v. refers to hazardous chemical spills and
Petroleum Marketing Marketing Act cases. Inner City Press has put written
questions -- for the second time -- to the Iraqi mission's listed press attaché,
including:
"For this [Basrah]
project, to be completed by the end of this year, has a contractor been
designated? PCO was in the news earlier this week with regard to their audits of
Halliburton's performance (as well as Foster-Wheeler). Direct question: does the
above quoted mean that Halliburton has gotten or could get this 'included'
project? Secondarily, why does the nationwide oil metering contract described in
the second paragraph of the letter need to take two years? And what will be done
in the interim?"
The same questions have been put to the chair of
IAMB, the UN's Jean-Pierre Halbwachs. Watch this space.
"Koc Holdings
Chairman calls on" S-G, 3/30/06
UN Round-up: upstairs at the UN headquarters on
Thursday, Secretary-General Annan met at noon with the chairman of Turkey's Koc
Holdings which holds, among other things, a joint venture with Shell and 87,000
employees, on the occasion of Koc Holdings joining the UN Global Compact. At
the noon briefing, it was asked how it is decided which of the Global Compact's
signatories get to meet with the Secretary-General, and whether these companies
-- including Koc Holdings -- might take questions from the press on their
adherence to the Compact's principles, including human rights, perhaps at a new
Corporate Stake-Out.
The Office of the Spokesman for the Secretary General (OSSG) responded that
while it is rare for Kofi Annan to meet with CEOs when they sign on to the
Global Compact,
"Mr. Koc was one of the rare
exceptions because of the significance of the company's commitment to the
country as a whole (Turkey) and the broader region. Also, Koc has deep
partnership relations with UN agencies in the areas of health and education."
Through the OSSG, a media relations and public affairs staffer of the Global
Compact Office indicated a willingness to try to connect reporters with
questions to the public relations staff of corporate CEOs who are slated to meet
with the Secretary-General. He added that the Global Compact Office will discuss
if and how they can make information about Global Compact events and meeting
available ahead of time, and will be willing to forward interview requests to
the involved corporations. [Editor's note: since the Secretary General's
schedule is only released the night before, this may not solve the problem. The
paragraph above was revised on March 31 to remove an informal characterization
of corporate public relations staff and their advice. Inner City Press will
going forward endeavor to obtain from the Global Compact or OSSG prior notice of
CEO-Secretary General meetings and pose pre-meeting questions as appropriate.]
In this instance, to tie it all together, including Shell
getting the oil metering contract in Iraq, Koc Holdings' oil refinery joint
venture with Shell is being
challenged to the EU Court of Human Rights by the
union Petrol-Is. What is
Koc Holdings (and Shell's and even the SG's and Global
Compact's) positions on this? Questions, questions...
Sidelight on the (UN) literary beat: One CEO
in a hot tub at a time, will the world be changed? The confessed (ex-) economic
hit man John Perkins spoke Thursday before the UN Correspondents Association,
urging the assembled journalists to make sure that marginalized voices from
outside what he called the corporatocracy are heard. Of a current hot topic at
the UN, attempts to censure Iran's moves for atomic energy, Perkins opined that
the real rub is Iran's threat to start selling oil in Euros rather than dollars,
and the United States' status as a debtor nation. Asked about realism of a
particularly upbeat (or naïve) line in his book --
"Imagine if the
Nike swoosh, MacDonald's arches, and Coca-Cola logo became symbols of companies
whose primary goals were to clothe and feed the world's poor in environmentally
beneficial ways" --
Mr. Perkins responded with stories about purported
environmental changes at Citigroup, and of a night in California in which the
CEO (well, SVP) of a corporation sat in a hot tub the director of an
environmental activist group and thanked him, for providing the opportunity for
the SVP to go to management with proposed green improvements. Perkins said that
none of the CEOs whom he met in his years as an economic hit man were bad
people, or didn't want a better world. In response to a question whether all
CEOs are benign given, for example, Dick Cheney's time as CEO of Halliburton,
Perkins asked, "Are you saying that Dick Cheney is not benign?" Rhetorical
question: will the world really be changed by CEOs changes of heart (or of
clothes) in a hot tub? Or by more stringent legislation and oversight? Mr.
Perkins said that his next book will address corporation and what he called
"democratic capitalism," so we'll see.
As Operation Swarmer Begins, UN's Qazi Denies It's
Civil War and Has No Answers if Iraq's Oil is Being Metered
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee, Inner City Press UN
Correspondent
UNITED NATIONS, March 16 -- Kofi Annan's
representative to Iraq, Ashraf Qazi, on Thursday described to the UN press corps
a country on the upswing, where people view each other in secular terms and
there is little to no danger of violence spreading over any of the country's
borders. Ashraf Qazi said, "I don't personally believe they are anywhere close to a
civil war" and "the situation has so far been under control." Ashraf
in Wonderland, said one wag at the briefing. Out in real world, 1500 troops and
50 helicopters were conducting assaults near Samarra, part of "Operation Swarmer."
In New York, Mr. Qazi arrived
more than half an hour late for the scheduled press briefing. He was
accompanied by a staffer from the Office of the Spokesman for the Secretary
General, who made a list of the reporters who raised their hands
to asked questions, but then went out of order for the final two allowed questions.
Inner City Press, which has sought since December to get an answer regarding oil
metering in Iraq, was passed over, for a question that elicited from Ashraf Qazi
statements that "on the streets, Iraqis don't deal with each other as Shia and
Sunni," but such fissures in governance "haven't allowed ministries to become
professional and competent." As the briefing ended and Mr. Qazi and his
entourage made for the side door, Inner City Press' reporter shouted out, "Is
oil in Iraq being metered?"
"I don’t know."
"That's too technical."
Ashraf Qazi on 3/16/06
"We'll try to get Mr. Halbwachs to
answer." This last was from the Spokesman's Office staffer, who acknowledged having gone out of the
order on his list. "I thought you were going to ask that question," he
said. [Editor's note: and then apparently forgot - see 3/30 Report,
above.]
This was not mind-reading:
Inner City Press began asking this question about oil metering in December 2005. There's a new
context, including
reports
that Iraq's Oil Ministry is warning Western Oilsands of Canada against bypassing
the Ministry and seeking oil directly in the Kurd-dominated north of the
country, presumably unmetered.
At the December 2005
press briefing at the United Nations,
regarding oil metering, the UN's
Jean-Pierre Halbwachs
stated
that we “understand that a recent agreement has been reached between the
Government of Iraq and a U.S. company to undertake the task.” See,
http://www.iamb.info/trans/tr122805.htm
The minutes of the
Jan. 23 meeting (also online at www.iamb.info) vaguely state that “the IAMB was
informed that no progress had been made with regards to the metering contract.”
Midday on March 16, Inner City
Press sent an email to Mr. Halbwachs at the address he gave at the December press
briefing, and raised the matter -- and others -- at the regular noon press
briefing, including the
report
about Western Oilsands of Canada and oil in the Kurdish north. The spokesman had
no response about oil metering, stating that the oil belongs to the people of
Iraq. That's the point -- if the oil is continuing to flow unmetered, it makes
the use of the revenue to benefit Iraq's people ever less likely.
Finding no answers from the United
Nations, which chairs the International Advisory & Monitoring Board on the Development Fund
for Iraq, Inner City Press will also be pursuing these issues elsewhere,
including in Washington with the International Monetary Fund, whose Bert Keuppens sits on the Advisory & Monitoring Board. Watch this space.
IAMB, including Messrs. Halbwachs & Keuppens, 12/05
Elsewhere at the UN on March 16, the
Democratic Republic of the Congo was critiqued at length before the human rights
panel in Conference Room 2. DR Congo's representative claimed that some of the
question-letters had gotten lost. One wag thought, even on human rights, it's
like the dog-ate-my-homework defense...
In Locked Down Iraq, Oil Still
Flows Unmetered While Questions Run in Circles
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee, Inner City Press UN
Correspondent
UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 24 – While Iraq is on lockdown,
that country’s oil continues to flow unmetered. Basic information about the
issue continues to be shrouded in mystery by the International Advisory and
Monitoring Board for the Development Fund for Iraq. In just-released
minutes of IAMB’s Jan. 23 meeting
in Paris, it is vaguely stated that “the IAMB was informed that no
progress had been made with regards to the metering contract.”
IAMB had
previous stated, in December
2005 press briefing at the UN, that it
“underst[ood] that a recent agreement has been reached between the Government of
Iraq and a U.S. company to undertake the task.”
Faced
with questions on Feb. 24, at the UN Secretary-General’s Spokesperson’s press
conference, and in writing to Iraq’s UN mission, none of these officials would
answer these questions:
-does a
contract or agreement for the oil metering exist? If so, with which company? If
not, was IAMB’s public-stated December understanding inaccurate? If so, why?
Inner City Press raised these questions at the
Feb. 24 noon briefing by the UN Secretary-General spokesperson. The UN’s
Jean-Pierre Halbwachs is the Secretary-General’s representative on the IAMB, and
chairs the IAMB. Inner City Press was encouraged to ask the Iraqi mission to the
UN. Despite submissions of written questions, as the UN emptied out on the
afternoon of Feb. 24, no answer had been received. The
online minutes of IAMB’s Jan. 23
meeting name all of the participants at the meeting except for the
Government of Iraq / IGI, of which it is only stated “Adviser, Ministry of
Finance.” Inner City Press then bypassed the Iraqi mission’s press attaché, and
was referred to a staffer who while not providing the name of the “U.S.
company,” speculated that his government’s representative to IAMB might be one
Mr. Turki of the Supreme Board of Audit, whose contact information he said would
be provided next week.
Subsequently the IAMB’s spokesman at the IMF
informed Inner City Press that since Iraq’s first representative to IAMB was
assassinated, it has since been the policy not to name subsequent
representatives, nor even the venues where IAMB meets. He stated that prior to
the December 2005 press briefing, IAMB had been informed that a contract had
been let, but that in Paris in late January, the unnamed Iraqi representative(s)
now said that no contract was awarded. He committed to asking IAMB to make some
public statement regarding the contract, prior to IAMB’s next meeting in late
May. What was the identify of the referenced “U.S. company”? ICP was told that
IAMB’s spokesman has no direct access to IAMB’s chairman, Jean-Pierre Halbwachs,
regarding whom questions should be directed to the UN: full circle.
Elsewhere at the UN headquarters on Feb. 24, at a
Black History Month presentation in Conference Room 8 in the basement, names
were named: a call was made, to Attorney General Gonzalez and to the U.S.
Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama to convene a grand jury regarding a
murder on February 8, 1965 of Jimmy Lee Jackson. The name named as Jackson’s
killer was Alabama state trooper James Bernard Fowler. A reporter who’d faced a
day of Iraqi oil metering run-around sighed, it’s not so hard to name names…
Inner City Press'
previous reports on this topic:
Halliburton
Repays $9 Million, While Iraq’s Oil Remains Unmetered
Byline: Matthew
Russell Lee, Inner City Press U.N. Correspondent
January 31, NEW YORK – The U.S.
government has required Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root to repay
only $9 million on a controversial contract, and promised information about the
metering of Iraq’s oil output has still not been provided, in the
stealth January 30 release by
the International Advisory and Monitoring Board for Iraq.
The IAMB last took
questions from the media, including Inner City Press, on December 28 at the
United Nations in New York. At that time, IAMB stated that an oil metering
contract had recently been let. It promised to provide more information shortly.
Inner City Press twice asked the IMF for this additional information, but none
was provided. Then on January 30 a summary of a January 23 meeting in Paris was
placed online. The release tersely
states that at the meeting, the IAMB
“reiterated its concern that key
actions, especially the installation of an oil metering system, were taking a
long time to implement. The IAMB urged the Government of Iraq to implement all
IAMB recommendations promptly."
Apparently, the December 28
statement that the oil metering contract was in place was incorrect. No one has
apologized, and the (unmetered) oil continues to flow. The Jan. 30 release also
states, in the nature of
disclosure:
“The U.S. Government informed
the IAMB that a global settlement of all six DFI funded task orders under the
KBR contract was reached between the U.S. Government and KBR on December 22,
2005. The settlement provided for a reduction of contract costs of US$9
million.”
This is much less than had
been contested, and previously reported. Given the costs, most importantly in
lives, of this Iraq war, what kind of transparency is this? It also raises
questions, on timing and other issues, in light of Halliburton's January 27
announcement that it intends to sell off a stake in Kellogg, Brown & Root in an
initial public offering of stock.
More Questions than Answers about
the Development Fund for Iraq: Representatives of Iraq Absent from UN Meeting
and Press Conference, Purportedly Due to Visa Problems
On
December 28, four of the five members of the oversight board of the Development
Fund for Iraq answered reporters’ questions for an hour at the United Nations in
New York. Missing was the representative of Iraq on the
International Advisory and Monitoring Board.
The explanation offered by the IAMB’s chairman Jean-Pierre Halbwachs was that
the Iraqi representatives had not been able to obtain U.S. visas in time. Their
absence proved convenient, as questions soon arose about a line in Mr. Halbwachs
prepared remarks, regarding the ongoing lack of metering on oil production in
Iraq. Mr. Halbwachs read out: “we understand that a recent agreement has been
reached between the Government of Iraq and a U.S. company to undertake the task”
of oil metering.
When
asked for the name of the U.S. company, the IAMB chairman’s response was that
only the Iraqi representatives would have that information. When a question
arose about the Iraqi representative’s written reference to the cost of metering
being covered by “donations,” no answer was forthcoming. When asked why it has
taken two years to make even this gesture toward metering, the representative of
the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development
Khalifa Ali Dau shrugged and smiled. Finally,
the IMF’s deputy press secretary said he will be providing follow-up information
about the metering contract (presumably on the IAMB’s web site,
www.iamb.info).
There
were questions about KPMG’s partial audit, and
Halliburton’s subsidiary
Kellogg, Brown & Root. The IMF’s
representative Bert Keuppens confirmed reports
of oil smuggling out of, and in some cases back into, Iraq. (For another report,
which puts the Iraqi absence last, see
CNN.
The UN’s own write-up is
here).
When
asked in conclusion to assign a grade to the transparency of the spending
process at the Development Fund for Iraq, the World Bank’s representative
Fayezul Choudhury declined to assign a grade, and
pointed out that even most European Union countries, and also the United States,
have only qualified opinions from their auditors. The press conference ended
with many questions unanswered. The IMF’s Bert Keuppens rushed out of the
briefing room. He returned a few minutes later and handed out two business
cards. It would have made sense, one wag said, to provide contact information
for the representatives to the IAMB from Iraq. And to have thought more deeply
about this question of their visas. The IAMB's online self-description:
"The IAMB shall consist of duly qualified representatives of
each of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Managing Director
of the International Monetary Fund, the Director-General of the Arab Fund
for Economic and Social Development and the President of the International
Bank for Reconstruction and Development and a duly qualified individual
designated by the Government of Iraq.
"B. The IAMB, after consulting with the Government of Iraq,
may appoint up to 5 observers to the IAMB from a list of independent,
qualified candidates, which should include Iraqi nationals nominated by the
Government of Iraq.
"C. At any meeting of the IAMB, each member may be
accompanied by an alternate, designated in a way identical to the
designation of each member, and up to two advisors."
Neither the Iraqi representative
nor his alternate / deputy nor even advisors were present, for the meeting
or to answer questions.
Again, the IAMB’s web site is
www.iamb.info...
Some
other recent Inner City Press reports:
At the UN, Dues
Threats and Presidents-Elect, Unanswered Greek Mission Questions
Kofi, Kony,
Kagame and Coltan: This Moment in the Congo and Kampala
As Operation
Swarmer Begins, UN's Qazi Denies It's Civil War and Has No Answers if
Iraq's Oil is Being Metered
Cash Crop: In
Nepal, Bhutanese Refugees Prohibited from Income Generation Even in
their Camps
The Shorted and
Shorting in Humanitarian Aid: From Davos to Darfur, the Numbers Don't
Add Up
UN Reform:
Transparency Later, Not Now -- At Least Not for AXA - WFP Insurance
Contract
In the Sudanese
Crisis, Oil Revenue Goes Missing, UN Says
Empty Words on
Money Laundering and Narcotics, from the UN and Georgia
What is the Sound
of Eleven Uzbeks Disappearing? A Lack of Seats in Tashkent, a Turf War
at UN
Kosovo: Of
Collective Punishment and Electricity; Lights Out on Privatization of
Ferronikeli Mines
Post-Tsunami
Human Rights Abuses, including by UNDP in the Maldives
Halliburton
Repays $9 Million, While Iraq’s Oil Remains Unmetered
Darfur on the
Margins: Slovenia’s President Drnovsek’s Quixotic Call for Action
Ignored
Who Pays for the
Global Bird Flu Fight? Not the Corporations, So Far - UN
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