According to some estimates, such an operation would consist of the sale of $20 billion worth of assets the world over by the end of this year. India’s ONGC Videsh Ltd, which is part of the state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, was named as the potential buyer of ConocoPhillips’ stake in the largest oil field to be discovered during the last 30 to 50 years. 

Should this deal be successfully concluded between the two companies in early 2013, the Indian government might gain long-term access to Kazakhstan’s lucrative oil and gas industry for about $5 billion. 

On the following day, Kazakhstan’s Oil and Gas Minister Sauat Mynbayev, who has been closely involved in Kashagan-related negotiations for over five years, stated that the deal could not be considered definitive until it obtained the approval of a special state commission. 

Under Article 12 of the law on subsoil use, whose upgraded version was adopted by the parliament in June 2010, Kazakhstan’s government enjoys a pre-emptive right to acquire stakes in oil, gas and other mineral deposits. This article also provides the government specific purchasing privileges relative to other stakeholders, in order to “preserve and strengthen the resource and energy basis of the national economy”. 

Furthermore, even should the government abstain from declaring its intention to buy up ConocoPhillips’ stake, such an expression of interest is possible on behalf of other North Caspian Operating Company (NCOC) participants, including ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Total, Eni and Inpex. The joint venture NCOC was created in 2008 and operates the Kashagan field as well as other energy resources. 

In early October, speaking at the KAZENERGY Association’s annual meeting, KazMunaiGaz (KMG) chairman Lyazzat Kiinov said his company might be interested in acquiring Conoco’s 8.4% share in Kashagan, in compliance with its growth strategy designed to make KMG one of the world’s 30 largest energy companies. 

In February 2012, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev already decided to unblock $4 billion from the National Fund for the purpose of supporting KMG’s commercial plans (the National Fund currently contains over $47 billion of reserve money collected from the oil and gas revenues). This gesture could be largely interpreted as an indication of Kazakhstan’s willingness to increase its participation in the Kashagan oil field, only a few years after KMG had already boosted its weight (in 2008, KMG increased its stake from 8.33% to 16.8%). 

In August 2012, it was reported that two of the NCOC members, ExxonMobil and Shell, were also seeking to increase their respective stakes as well as to extend the term of the production-sharing agreement for another 20 years. According to undisclosed sources working in the consortium, both companies were even ready to exit the project unless their demands were met by the Kazakhstani Government. 

While the purchase of ConocoPhillips’ stake is theoretically possible both for KMG and any of its Kashagan partners, either of these scenarios has serious drawbacks. Sergey Smirnov, an Almaty-based expert of the Institute of Political Solutions, believes that KazMunaiGaz would be unable to offer a competitive price, given its already wide-ranging portfolio of investments into various energy projects. 

According to Smirnov, even if KMG used the National Fund’s money to take over Conoco’s share, it would be hard pressed to bear the burden of additional expenditure related to the first phase of production. In May 2012, its cost was once again upgraded from $38 billion to $46.3 billion, while the initial estimates made by Italy’s Agip back in 2005 hardly amounted to $5 billion. 

As regards a potential bid from a Western stakeholder in Kashagan, it may be expected that neither of the consortium’s largest members would be glad to see any of its partners control as much as 25% in the NCOC. Therefore, the Western energy companies may collectively prefer to accept a new participant in the NCOC with a minor share. 

While ONGC’s deal with ConocoPhillips stills needs to be notified to the government of Kazakhstan and subjected to double approval – formally from the state authority and informally from the consortium – there is already also much speculation about the potential involvement of Chinese oil companies. In August 2012, Energy Intelligence Group reported that the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) had hired the Hong Kong-based CITIC Resources Holdings Ltd to conduct talks with both ExxonMobil and Shell about the purchase of their respective shares in Kashagan in the name of the Chinese oil giant. 

Although neither of the Western companies earnestly considered a possibility of exiting Kashagan, it became clear that China was ready to pay for its right of entry. Kazakhstan-based energy expert Olzhas Baidildinov believes that the announcement of the ConocoPhillips-ONGC deal might only whet China’s appetite. 

Even though Kazakhstan may be interested in attracting India’s capital and thus diversifying its commercial relations, Beijing’s technical expertise in oil production still remains largely superior to that of New Delhi. Moreover, in the case of additional legal problems with Western oil companies, China’s CNPC could provide enough money to compensate for their eventual exit without compromising production. 

Currently, Kashagan is regarded as one of the most promising oil fields in the world. Its total oil reserves are estimated at 38 billion barrels or six billion tonnes, out of which 10 billion barrels are lying at levels directly accessible to contemporary drilling methods. 

Furthermore, this supergiant field may conceal up to one trillion cubic meters of natural gas. In late August 2012, CNN Money ranked Kashagan as the world’s most expensive energy project, worth around $116 billion.

Article sourced from Asia Times

Kashagan, the world’s biggest oilfield discovery since 1968, holds an estimated 30 billion barrels of oil-in-place, of which 8-12 billion are potentially recoverable. First production from the field is expected in 2013.

India, the world’s fourth-biggest oil importer, buys nearly 80 per cent of its oil needs as expanding refining capacity has outpaced local oil output. State-run ONGC’s local oil output has been almost stagnant for years.

ConocoPhillips said the carrying value of the assets related to its Kashagan interest was about $5.5 billion as of Sept. 30.

The company said it would take an after-tax impairment of about $400 million in the fourth quarter to reduce the carrying value. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2013.

ONGC, India’s third-biggest company by market value, has been investing to maintain output from its old fields and has capital spending plans of around 340 billion Indian rupees ($6.12 billion) both this year and next. The company is under pressure from the government to meet rising demand.

The acquisition is the largest ever for ONGC, and marks the biggest outbound deal from India since mobile phone operator Bharti Airtel bought mobile phone operations in 15 African countries for $9 billion in 2010 from Kuwait-based telecoms group Zain.

ONGC Videsh, the arm of ONGC that invests in overseas assets, said the acquisition would likely add 1 million tonnes (20,000 barrels per day) to its annual production over 25 years with the company’s share of output significantly higher in later stages of development. ONGC Videsh’s production in the year to March 31, 2012 was 8.7 million tonnes.

Kazakhstan, home to 3 per cent of the world’s recoverable oil reserves and the largest former Soviet oil producer after Russia, has sought to revise deals struck with foreign energy companies in the lean post-Soviet years.

ConocoPhillips has been conducting a disposal program to reduce its non-core overseas assets to reduce debt and increase its exploration and dividend budgets.

It has already exceeded its target of asset sales worth $20 billion by the end of 2012, including the sale of its stake in Lukoil, Russia’s second-biggest oil producer.

“(The) purchase price of $5 billion is at the high end of our prior expectation of $4 to $5 billion,” analysts at Simmons and Co wrote in a note to clients.

“This is a positive for ConocoPhillips as it marks important progress on their asset divestiture program, which is needed to support the capital program and dividend.”

ConocoPhillips shares down slightly at $56.39 in early trading.

The company said it notified government authorities in Kazakhstan, and its partners in the North Caspian Sea production-sharing agreement of its intention to sell the stake.

Kazakh oil and gas minister Sauat Mynbayev last month disclosed ConocoPhillips’ plans to sell its stake in the field.

The Kashagan field is jointly controlled by state-run KazMunaiGas and six international companies, including Eni Spa, ExxonMobil Corp, Royal Dutch Shell Plc , Total SA and Inpex Corp.

Article sourced from Times of India

Foto: Difusión

ConocoPhillips announced today that they are pulling out of Oil Bocks 123 and 129 in the Peruvian Amazon. The company had been under increasing pressure from the local population in Iquitos and the regional government over their plans to drill dozens of exploratory wells in a protected area and fragile Nanay watershed.

The announcement comes just weeks after Canada’s Talisman Energy announced their withdrawal from Peru, including controversial Block 64 where Talisman had been drilling exploratory wells without the consent of the majority of Achuar people living within the oil block.

Oil Blocks 123 and 129 overlap the Upper Nanay – Pintuyacu – Chambira Regional Conservation Area. These headwaters provide over 90% of the drinking water to 500,000 residents of the city of Iquitos and neighboring villages, and contain fragile white-sand ecosystems, black-water flooded forests, and numerous endemic species.

In response to ConocoPhillip’s plans to drill XX exploratory wells this year inside the protected area thousands of people have taken to the streets in Iquitos and the President of the regional government of Loreto directly requested that ConocoPhillips cease operations.

The comment, posted on the Los Angeles Times site, responds to an item mocking the idea Sarah Palin should run for president in 2016. It’s fairly typical of the pro-Palin sentiment I’ve encountered since John McCain picked her to run for VP. She’s a “true conservative,” and will get “away from government using our money to pick winners and losers.”

How then, do supporters like Ozstickman reconcile what she actually did as governor?? To wit:

She spent $600,000 of government money trying to make the failing, state-owned dairy, Matanuska Maid, a ‘winner’ instead of a ‘loser.’ Her bailout of the dairy failed – $600,000 down the drain.

Palin convinced the Legislature to invest $500 MILLION of government money in an effort, so far unsuccessful and looking more so every day, to jump-start a $40 billion pipeline to deliver Alaska’s natural gas to market. She used government money to “pick winners and losers” in that one – two private companies (BP and Conoco/Phillips) said they would pursue the project WITHOUT any government money.

Now, I personally supported Palin’s approach to the natural gas pipeline – I thought the BP/Conoco offer had way too many strings attached that were detrimental to the state’s long-term interests. IMHO, Palin’s approach would have broken the 40-year stranglehold Alaska’s big oil companies have had on the North Slope gas fields and had the best chance of succeeding, so I thought it was worth risking the $500 million, given the huge gain Alaska would reap if the project went through. But I am NOT a conservative, and her decision to invest $500 million in a private company’s effort is a perfect example of “government using our money to pick winners and losers.”

The comment above appears to be a classic case of what psychologists call ‘confirmation bias.” People who didn’t know Palin from Paul Harvey before she ran for VP seek out information that confirms their view of her as a conservative. They are forced to overlook how her signature accomplishments – raising taxes on the oil industry by $2 billion a year, investing $500 million to promote the long-desired natural gas pipeline, and ethics reform – were ‘liberal’ policies, which enjoyed almost unanimous support of the Legislature’s Democrats.

Her failed bailout of the dairy was a classic case of using government money to save a failing business.  Her appointment of a pro-choice justice to the state Supreme Court and veto of an anti-gay rights measure were bitter disappointments to Alaska’s social conservatives.

It is true that early on in her term as governor, Palin was highly popular (approval rating pushing 90%), and you could say she united Alaskans of (almost) all political colors. The 10% who didn’t approve of her early on were the Republican Party establishment and Alaska’s business (pro-oil) establishment. The Republican establishment thought she was an unqualified outsider. The business establishment thought she was too much of an anti-oil populist … and she didn’t come from their clubby corner of Alaska life.

I wish conservatives who now venerate Palin would come to terms with her fairly liberal gubernatorial record in an intellectually honest way.

Read Full Report: http://www.insiderslab.com/PR3/111212B/CSCO/Cisco.pdf

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE:AMD): Insiderslab.com found Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE:AMD) Senior Vice President, General Manager – Global Business Units, Lisa T. Su, sold 48,000 shares on November 7, at stock price US$2.05 for about US$98,400. Disclose date: November 8. However, other company officials have purchased US$81,000 worth in the last three months. By market close, the stock advanced 2.53% to close at US$2.03. Are Advanced Micro Devices insiders starting to take huge profits by selling shares or exercising stock options? Add AMD into your watch list for insider trade now.

Read Full Report: http://www.insiderslab.com/PR3/111212B/AMD/AdvancedMicroDevices.pdf

NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA): Shares of NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) ended lower by US$0.49 (or -3.86%) to US$12.19 with more than 21.15 million shares exchanged hands for the session, compared to its average volume of 10.26 million shares. In the past year, the stock has traded within a range of US$11.63 – US$16.90. Insiderslab.com refers insider trading data to professional investors since NVIDIA insiders have better access to company non-public information.

Read Full Report: http://www.insiderslab.com/PR3/111212B/NVDA/NVIDIA.pdf

Today Insiderslab.com also observed abnormal trade volume for the following companies; insiders may involve trading in these companies. It will take some time for insiders to report their trades. Read these reports and add these companies into your Insider Trade Radar.

Lowe’s Companies, Inc. (NYSE:LOW):
Read Full Report: http://www.insiderslab.com/PR3/111212B/LOW/Lowes.pdf

Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE:S):
Read Full Report: http://www.insiderslab.com/PR3/111212B/S/Sprint.pdf

Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ:FITB):
Read Full Report: http://www.insiderslab.com/PR3/111212B/FITB/FifthThirdBancorp.pdf

Insider Filing Source Reference: All observations, analysis and reports are based on public information released by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

About Insiderslab.com:

Insiderslab.com covers insider trade data in major stock markets in the U.S., Hong Kong, Mainland China, and Singapore. Insiderslab.com features a team of experienced data analysts striving to provide the investment community with the tools, software, and data necessary to carry out more effective investment research.

Important Disclaimer:
Please visit insiderslab.com/disclaimers/disclaimers.php for details.

CONTACT: Insiders.hk, Insiderslab.com, info@insiderslab.com, Support@insiders.hk
SOURCE Insiderslab.com; Insiders.hk
Editor: Janet Nan Jiang

Compressed air is a decades-old technology which takes excess energy from a power plant or renewable energy and uses it to run air compressors, which pump air into tanks or underground caverns where it’s stored under pressure. When the air is released, it powers a turbine, creating electricity. There’s only a handful of compressed air energy storage projects in the world, including one in Alabama and one in Germany.

But over the past couple of years a couple starts have emerged that are creating a next-generation — more efficient — version of the this technology. LightSail Energy is one of these firms and uses a water spray in the air compression process. SustainX and General Compression, based in Massachusetts are two others.

SustainX has been planning on starting construction on a 1 MW compressed air energy storage project, likely at a coal plant, in conjunction with power company AES, its first customer. In late 2009, the Department of Energy awarded SustainX a $5.39 million grant to help it reach that commercialization goal.

General Compression is also working on its first project in Texas with partner and investor ConocoPhillips. General Compression raised a $54.5 Million series B in the Summer of 2011 from Northwater Capital Management, US Renewables Group, Duke Energy, and Serious Change.

According to this New York Times article, which cites Lux Research, the worldwide market for energy storage could be as large as $31.5 billion by 2017.

International Recycling Symbol 32px|alt=W3C|link=http://validator.w3.org/✓ The source code of this SVG is valid. Category:Valid SVG (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Bring your old unwanted  CPUs, monitors, keyboards, laptops, power cords, printers, televisions, fax machines, cell phones and batteries to be e-recycled Saturday November 17th, 2012 to the ConocoPhillops Parking Lot located at the northwest corner of N. Eldridge and N. Dairy Ashford.     Sponsered by BP – British Petroleum, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil and The EnergyCorridor District 

You may also  bring personal documents, photographs, diskettes, micro-fiche, CD-ROMS, videotapes and cassette tapes – on site shredding will be provided by Shred Pro.   Cloths, shoes and toys recycling will be provided by American Textile Recycling Services.

Connie Vallone, First Market Realty 713 249 4177  www.houstonenergycorridorhomes.com or www.vallonehomes.com

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The California company, founded in 2009, announced Wednesday that it’s projecting a biofuel production cost of $1.50 per gallon at a plant that can produce 10 million gallons per year. Cool Planet is looking to raise around $100 million for that first 10 million-gallon facility and for production and other corporate expenses. That first plant would have a capital cost of $50 million, said Howard Janzen, CEO of Cool Planet. At those estimates the biofuel could be produced for less than the price of crude oil.

The company hopes to complete the project and start delivering fuel in the first half of 2014. Janzen said some of the company’s investors will be the ones in line to get the first shipments from that plant, though he declined to disclose their names. The plant is planned for the U.S., but the location hasn’t been settled, said Janzen.

A plant of 10 million gallons seems small, given many biofuel makers want to build commercial plants at twice the size. But Cool Planet figures the way to reduce costs, such as transporting energy crops, is to build many smaller plants that are close to the feedstock source. They should be within a 30-mile radius, says Janzen.

All this sounds like a good plan, and almost too good to be true. Janzen said the company’s investors were very skeptical before they put up the money, too. Janzen declined to say how much Cool Planet has raised.

Google is completing a field trial at its Mountain View headquarters using gasoline with a 5 percent blend of Cool Planet’s biofuel. Google has used the blended fuel to log 2,490 miles in one car, which is just slightly less than 2,514 miles in a car that uses 100 percent conventional gasoline. The car with the biofuel passed 5 smog tests and its emissions were “virtually identical” to the gasoline-only car, Cool Planet said.

Cool Planet has come up with a technology that is quite different than the fermentation and other chemical processes that are under development. The company uses high heat and pressure to compress woodchips, crop wastes or other feedstock in an oxygen-free environment. The desired temperature is around 350 degrees Celsius and the pressure at 150 psi. This process creates vapor that is then converted to fuel. The process also generates biochar, which then goes through a gasifying process to get more vapor that can be converted into fuel.

The remaining biochar residue can then be sold as fertilizer, a component of water filters or even a wood pellet substitute, Janzen said. So the amount of biochar that can be produced can be adjusted depending on whether the company wants to sell more biochar or fuel. In general, a 10 million-gallon plant can produce about 10,000 tons of biochar. The company is working on finding buyers for its biochar.

Biochar production serves a way for Cool Planet to sequester carbon emissions. If biochar is used as fertilizer, then its carbon will stay in the soil instead of being released into the atmosphere. As a result, Cool Planet claims that its entire fuel production process in effect reduces carbon emissions by a significant amount.

The startup already has a pilot production line at its headquarters that can make 50,000 gallons of biofuel per year, and it’s building a larger plant nearby that will be able to yield 400,000 gallons per year.

ConocoPhillips Stock Price, 2007-2012; 2011 Effective Corporate Tax Rate; Source: ConocoPhillips, NerdWallet

Sources: Google Finance, NerdWallet

In a retirement account, it is important to create current income, while keeping opportunities for growth in your portfolio. One of the best combinations of growth and income can be found in the oil companies. In this sector, there are many great companies, so how does an investor decide which is the best investment over the long term?

There are many great oil companies to choose from; however we will limit our selections to those that pay high dividends (above 4.5%). This is why Exxon Mobil (XOM), while one of the most widely-held stocks in the world, is not included in this analysis. High dividend stocks can be great investments both before and after retirement. A retiree could obviously collect the dividends as a stream of income, and a pre-retirement investor has the ability to reinvest all dividends free of commission, using a DRIP (Dividend Reinvestment Plan) offered by most brokerages.

Our candidates in no particular order are:

Conoco Phillips (COP) – The only U.S.-based company on our list, Conoco explores for, produces, transports and markets crude oil, bitumen, natural gas, LNG and natural gas liquids all over the world. Conoco is one of the largest independent oil and gas exploration and production companies in the world, with a market capitalization of around $69.7 billion. Currently, COP trades at 11.1 times TTM earnings. COP has done very well over the past 20 years, with an 8.5% average annual gain in share price and dividend yields. COP is currently yielding around 4.6%.

Total (TOT) – Based in Paris, France, Total has operations in 150 countries and is engaged in all aspects of the petroleum industry. Total is one of the largest publicly traded oil companies in the world, with a market cap around $113.4 billion, and currently trades at only 7.4 times TTM earnings. TOT has rewarded its investors with an 8% average gain in share price over the past two decades, and has given generous 10.2% annual dividend increases over that time period. Total is currently paying a 4.88% yield.

Eni SpA (E) – An Italian multinational oil and gas company, Eni is the highest yielder in this list, currently paying 5.94% annually. Eni has a $73.4 billion market cap and trades at 9.28 times TTM earnings. Since going public in 1996, Eni has increased its share value by an average of 8% annually, and has raised its dividend by 10.3% per year.

Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A) – headquartered in the Netherlands, Royal Dutch Shell has been in operation since 1892. One of the largest oil and gas companies in the world, RDS operates in over 100 countries and has a market cap of $130.6 billion, currently trading at only 8.27 times earnings. Over the past 20 years, RDS has underperformed its peers, gaining 6.7% in the average year and raising its dividend by 5.8%.

BP (BP) – Founded in 1909 in Iran, BP is now a London-based oil and gas company, and the largest in this comparison, with a market cap of $133.9 billion, and trading at 7.83 times earnings. BP, which still has not fully recovered from the infamous Deepwater Horizon disaster, has still managed to average a 7.4% gain over the past 20 years. BP only started paying regular dividends in 2000, starting at 33 cents quarterly, and raising them consistently to 84 cents in 2010, before being forced to cut dividends in half after the disaster.

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Deutsche Bank analyst Paul Sankey has a few ideas.

“To paraphrase Wayne Gretzky, we can’t keep skating after the Murphy puck, we need to skate to where it’s going next, and that, in our space, first has to be Oxy and Hess,” he told clients. “In both cases, investors have major questions over strategy and
execution, and both are trading below NAV.”

Mr. Sankey also pointed to ConocoPhillips as a sleeper pick, noting that it easily has the scale for a major asset sale push.

The analyst noted that Hess Corp. does have a relatively low-key disposal program, which targets $5-billion of divestments by 2013 to close its near-term funding gap. However, he said the company’s asset base is far too diverse for a company of its size.

“The stock price reflects concern about ballooning capital costs, chronic lack of free cash flow, a high oil price breakeven, and recent difficulty executing against guidance and expectations,” Mr. Sankey said.

He believes Hess’s Eagle Ford assets could fetch about $1-billion, while its newly-built Bakken infrastructure would probably worth the same amount as a Master Limited Partnership given the tax-advantaged structure.

For Occidental Petroleum Corp., Mr. Sankey noted that while its share price discount to NAV doesn’t look that big, the stock has historically traded best-in-class alongside Exxon Mobil Corp.

“The concern for Oxy…is that the ranking of its management is falling fast. That is why we believe strategy change is needed,” he said. “We do not believe that discount is sufficiently severe to attract activists – yet.”

As for Conoco, Mr. Sankey would like to see a stated target for dividend hikes above inflation, that is supported by a promise to sell more assets if necessary to maintain dividend growth.

“Although again less of a target for activists, the potential for ConocoPhillips to undertake a longer-term second leg of restructuring clearly remains,” he said, highlighting the potential sale of its entire North Sea asset base.

The analyst also suggested the company’s Alaska assets could be worth more to others than ConocoPhillips.

Other than Murphy’s retail spin-off, there are three other disposals Third Point called for. One of those is its 5% stake in the Syncrude joint venture in Canada’s oil sands.

Mr. Sankey considers Third Point’s $2.6-billion valuation for this asset “somewhat optimistic,” noting it is based on Sinopec’s 2010 acquisition of Conoco’s 9% stake.

“There are many more oil sands assets for sale in the region now, possibly as many as a dozen, so it is a buyer’s market, and we expect lower premiums in future deals,” he said, adding that growth plans for the project have been pushed back.

The analyst believes the likely buyer for the Syncrude stake would be an Asian national oil company (NOC). However, he noted this would require approval from Investment Canada, which is currently reviewing the Nexen-CNOOC and Petronas-Progress deals among others.

“The consensus is that NOC buyers will likely wait to see what happens with the somewhat controversial Nexen deal before making major purchases in Western Canada,” Mr. Sankey said.

By Dean HENDERSON, LEFT HOOK

(Excerpted from Chapter 7: The Four Horsemen: Big Oil & Their Bankers…)

After World War II – during which Royal Dutch Shell Chairman Sir Henry Deterding loudly supported the Nazis, while Exxon and Texaco collaborated with the Nazi I.G. Farben combine – the Four Horsemen turned their full attention to the Middle East. There the cartel operated under names like Iranian Consortium, Iraqi Petroleum Company and ARAMCO.

With the rise of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as a producer cartel, the companies devised increasingly sophisticated ways to diminish OPEC’s collective bargaining ability.

Nationalistic governments were destabilized, discredited and overthrown by the CIA at the behest of Big Oil. Henry Kissinger set up his International Energy Agency (IEA), which the French called a machine de guerre.

Both Nixon’s Twin Pillars Policy and Reagan’s Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) were efforts to divide OPEC between wealthy banker nations and poor industrializing nations, with the Saudis playing the key role of swing producer in both schemes.

As oil trader George Perk once commented of the Four Horsemen/Saudi relationship, “The oil markets are not free markets. Oil company officials bribe officials in Saudi Arabia. They only get into the market for a fix.”

Following the Gulf War Jordan’s King Hussein commented of the Saudi role in diminishing OPEC’s bargaining power, “At the grassroots level, long-submerged feelings of resentment on the part of most Arabs toward the Saudis are now out of the bottle. We resent the fact that they buy everything – technology, protection, ideas, people, respectability… the Arab people are saying that the US and Saudi Arabia are indistinguishable, and from this they conclude that the Saudis are backing Israel. Have the Saudis no shame?”

OPEC emerged from the 1973 embargo determined to craft regional solutions which would lessen its dependence on the West in obtaining hard currencies necessary to function in the global economy. The 1972 Arab Summit in Khartoum, Sudan – which ended the first war between North and South Yemen – called on the rich Gulf State sheikdoms to divert their Western-bound petrodollars into development schemes for poor nations.

The industrializing OPEC price hawks formed the Steadfastness and Confrontation Front which consisted of Iraq, Libya, Algeria, South Yemen, the PLO and Syria. OPEC issued The Solemn Declaration which called for a more just and equitable New International Economic Order. This led to the Conference on International Economic Cooperation in Paris, where 19 developing countries from the G-77 met with their G-7 counterparts to discuss creating a more just global economic landscape.

OPEC leader Algeria led a political bloc at the conference called the Non-Aligned South Solidarity Movement, which advocated a trickling down of OPEC oil wealth to developing nations, instead of the recycling of petrodollars into Eight Families-owned international mega-banks. Out of this sprang the influential and pesky Non-Aligned Movement, which wanted nothing to do with picking sides between the West and the Soviet Bloc.

But Kissinger’s IEA showed up at the Paris conference demanding that it focus solely on energy, with no linkage to the larger question of global economic injustice. The IEA was dominated by the international bankers, who preferred tallying up interest payments on bad Latin America loans financed by OPEC petrodollars to helping the world’s poor.

The bankers plowed this vast pool of money back into their Western piggy banks, financed US military expansionism and made available funds for CIA covert operations to protect their Four Horsemen and their stable of other various multinational resource extractors.

The Steadfastness and Confrontation Front met in Damascus in 1979 to plot a strategy to thwart the Camp David Peace Accords between Israel and Egypt, which the Saudis and the US were firmly backing. The price hawks knew that Israel served Four Horsemen interests in the region. They feared further division within OPEC if this first Arab peace treaty with Israel was signed.

But the US offered Egypt massive military aid and the Accords were signed following an intensive US effort led by former Bechtel executive Philip Habib. The Accords – coupled with Reagan’s creation of the GCC (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar & Oman) in 1981 – accomplished the goals of Kissinger’s machine de guerre.

The very next year the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was officially launched. Awash with recycled GCC petrodollars, the IMF both polices and legitimizes Eight Families asset seizures worldwide.

The international petroleum standard was born.

The IMF serves as enforcer and collection agency for the international bankers whom Kissinger represents. Kissinger keeps his important papers at the Rockefeller family’s vast Pocantico Hills estate in upstate New York.

(Hmm…Occupy March from NYC?)

The IMF pressures developing nations – who borrowed recycled GCC petrodollars at exorbitant 15-20% interest rates from Eight Families banks – to open their economies to multinational corporations owned by these same banks.

Bad enough they had usurped OPEC’s oil wealth – which the G-77 envisioned being utilized for Third World development. Now the bankers had the audacity to loan these petrodollars – for which GCC sheiks got 6% US T-bonds – to the South at exorbitant interest rates, plunging poor nations into a bottomless cycle of debt.

Once the nations couldn’t repay, asset seizure commenced. The 1995 Mexican “debt crisis” negotiations led by Citigroup resulted on the Rockefeller-controlled ASARCO taking control of the previously Mexican state-owned cement company and the takeover of the state-owned railroad by Burlington Northern (now BNSF).

Most of the usurious loans go to set up tax-free multinational operations or end up in the pockets of these countries’ elites, who then make off with the cash through BCCI-like Western intelligence-controlled vassals. Workers of the Third World are then left responsible for paying back debt from money they never even received.

Former Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez called this IMF smoke and mirrors routine, “economic totalitarianism”.

In 2001, when the Argentine government was forced to default on $132 billion it “owed” the bankers because the IMF canceled a bailout package when Argentina refused to accept its draconian terms, the country’s Minister of Finance Domingo Cavallo called the IMF “international vampires”. [264]

Cavallo resigned, as did a succession of four Presidents who refused to play the IMF’s rigged game. Under the brave leadership of current President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the Argentines are still in arrears to the IMF.

A more recent Four Horsemen trick has been to increase oil production in non-OPEC nations. In 1990 Exxon Mobil obtained 29% of its US-bound crude from Angola, 16% from Oman and 16% from Columbia. RD/Shell purchased 19% of its US-bound oil from Mexico and 17% from Yemen. Chevron Texaco got 26% of its US stock from Mexico. None of these nations are OPEC members. [265]

A recent study by the American Petroleum Institute stated that non-OPEC production growth since 1980 has eroded OPEC market influence. The 1984 North Sea oil discoveries by Norway and Britain further weakened the bargaining power of OPEC’s industrializing price hawks. Norway and Britain became net exporters of crude, using that leverage to drive world oil prices lower.

The OPEC nations of Venezuela, Iraq, Indonesia and Nigeria are particularly dependent on high crude prices because oil provides a large percentage of their total exports.

In Indonesia two Presidents have been ousted since the 1999 devaluation of the rupiah thrust the world’s fourth most populous nation into an extended period of civil unrest and economic meltdown. A December 28, 1998 article in Business Week detailed Mobil’s massive oilfields and petrochemical facilities in the troubled Aceh region of North Sumatra.

Indonesian troops under the direction of President Suharto, whom the CIA installed after their 1964 John Hull-led coup, overthrew the nationalist Sukarno government and massacred protesters right next to these Mobil facilities. It was a moment of historical continuity. In 1882 Aceh tribesman had attacked RD/Shell headquarters in the very same region. The Dutch colonial government put down the rebellion in similarly brutish fashion.

Indonesia was made an economic basket case when a consortium of US banks led by Citibank began dumping money into the lap of General Ibnu Sutowo, Suharto’s right-hand man who controlled the purse strings at Pertamina, the state oil company. Sowoto squandered the loot on palaces, a fleet of aircraft, a chain of hotels and a white Rolls Royce. The Indonesian Central Bank was kept in the dark as his bills mounted.

In 1974 Sutowo flew to Gothenberg, Sweden, where he christened the new oil supertanker Ibnu alongside close friend and sometime CIA cutout Itzak Rappaport. He then golfed with Arnold Palmer, Gary Player and Sam Snead.

The Pertamina loans topped $6 billion. Add to that, bribes taken by scores of Indonesian Air Force officers during the 1970’s to secure contracts for Lockheed Martin through numbered Singapore accounts known as the Widows and Orphans Fund. [266]

Indonesia is still burdened with that debt today. Advising the government on financial matters are Lazard Freres, Kuhn Loeb and Warburg – a group which calls itself The Triad. They also advise the governments of Congo, Gabon, Sri Lanka, Panama and Turkey.

In Venezuela Exxon’s Creole Petroleum was founded by the CIA, with whom they share office space. [267] Exxon is the CIA in Venezuela. Bechtel built the Mena Grande pipeline to service Creole’s oil interests. Though the country is a major supplier of crude to the US, its bolivar has been sharply devalued.

Public frustration culminated in the election of populist President Hugo Chavez, who is critical of the Four Horsemen and the target of an ongoing CIA destabilization effort. In 2002 the country’s wealthy elite called for a general strike causing Chavez to step down temporarily. Rockefeller lieutenant and Royal Bank of Canada insider Gustavo Cisneros was squarely in the middle of the oligarchy’s tantrum. Later that year the ricos took another run at Chavez, but he refused to yield.

In 2007 Chavez demanded a larger percentage of revenue for the Venezuelan people from Big Oil. Exxon Mobil and Conoco Philips both refused and were forced to leave the country.

In Nigeria Royal Dutch/Shell and Chevron Texaco dominate the oil industry, where they produce the benchmark Bonny Light crude used in aviation fuels and other high-grade products. Recent political violence has killed over 10,000 people. Big Oil’s Nigerian Delta operations have been at the epicenter of the violence.

On November 10, 1995 Nigerian playwright Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other protest leaders were hung by the military junta of General Soni Abacha, another in a line of Four Horsemen puppets who have ruled the country. Abacha’s regime had given Shell the green light to drill on Ogoni tribal lands, resulting in protests by a half-million Ogoni people who said Shell had badly polluted both their land and their water.

Saro-Wiwa’s family sued Shell for complicity in his death, which gained international attention. The lawsuit accused Shell of wrongful death, torture, summary execution and arbitrary arrest and detention. Saro-Wiwa’s brother, a plaintiff in the suit, stated, “This is a classic case of the methods used by multinationals against those who challenge them. Taking Shell to court is one of many nonviolent methods of struggle against the company’s role in the human rights and environmental degradation of Ogoni”. [268]

Only a month after the hangings, Shell defiantly announced plans to embark on a $3.8 billion natural gas project in Nigeria in tandem with the Nigerian junta, the French Total and the Italian Agip. Nigerian’s were outraged. On March 4, 1997 protestors took 127 Shell employees prisoner, burned and looted Shell gas stations and occupied its oil platforms. Shell was forced to cut back production in Nigeria and came under increased scrutiny from human rights groups around the world. [269]

In July 2002 a group of Nigerian women took Chevron Texaco employees hostage and occupied its facilities. A day later the company’s Lagos headquarters was struck by lightning. The revolt against Big Oil in Nigeria continues.

These three cases of Four Horsemen atrocities in OPEC nations provide another reason the companies are increasingly moving to non-OPEC sources. They have simply worn out their welcome.

In 1972 OPEC produced 84.8% of oil outside the US, USSR, Eastern Europe and China. As of 1991 OPEC supplied only 60.9% of US imported oil, most of that coming from the GCC states of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE. In 1989 18% came from the Saudis. [270]

Compliance by the GCC in overproduction of crude to keep prices low for Four Horsemen downstream operations is the key to keeping OPEC divided. The Saudis play the key role of swing producer with ARAMCO’s 10 million barrel/day capacity and 261 billion barrels of oil reserves.

The GCC shoreline on the southwest side of the Persian Gulf contains 42% of the world’s oil. It is ideal topographically for cheap local transport of crude to coastal storage and refining facilities, and for the loading of crude onto tankers. The giant Burgan field in Kuwait is only five miles from the Gulf. Crude flows through a Bechtel-constructed pipeline from Burgan to a storage tank farm atop a ridge overlooking the Gulf at Al-Ahmadi. From there oil flows down into tankers waiting at port. [271] In 1978 the cost of pumping and transporting a barrel of Persian Gulf crude was less than one cent. [272]

It was cheap Persian Gulf labor that caused Big Oil to cap their wells in Texas and Louisiana and move to the Gulf. Domestic production quotas limited independent oil company production. The independents didn’t have the capital or political connections to go global. From 1956-74 the profitability of foreign oil doubled, while the profitability of domestic crude stayed the same. [273]

Big Oil also imports cheap labor into the GCC states from places like Bangladesh, the Philippines, Yemen and Pakistan. Some larger independents have gone overseas but they are relegated – along with Third World government-owned oil companies – to the riskier tasks of oil exploration and production. Meanwhile, the Four Horsemen have ridden on to greener pastures downstream.

[264] BBC World News. November 2001.

[265] “Scorecards on the Oil Giants”. Susan Caminiti. Fortune. 9-10-90. p.45

[266] Spooks: The Haunting of America-the Private Use of Secret Agents. Jim Hougan. William Morrow & Company, Inc. New York. 1978. p.443

[267] Ibid. p.433

[268] “Shell Sued Over Nigerian Hangings”. AP. Missoulian. 11-9-96. p.A-6

[269] BBC World News. 3-24-97

[270] “Energy Blues and Oil”. Brian Tokar. Z Magazine. January 1991. p.14

[271] Oil, Industrialization and Development in the Gulf States. Atif Kubursi. Croom Helm. Kent, UK. 1984. p.24

[272] “A Reporter at Large: The World’s Resources: Parts I-III”. Richard Barnet. The New Yorker. p.26

[273] Tokar. p.22