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Iraqi oil officials are scheduled to meet with a consortium of Japanese companies on Sunday to finalize a development deal on the Nassiriyah oil field. The negotiations follow a first round of bidding for lucrative contracts earlier this summer by several multinational oil corporations. Only the consortium comprised of British Petroleum and the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation emerged with agreed upon terms for the largest oil field in Iraq last summer but government oil officials have since made negotiations much more appealing to bidders. Earlier this month, Exxon-Mobil was able to win a fifty billion dollar contract and in doing so became the first U.S.-based oil corporation to reach a deal with Iraq in thirty-five years. Forty-five international oil corporations will be seeking future developmental deals on fifteen oil fields in the country as a highly competitive second round of bidding is scheduled to start on December 11th. Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain Shahristani characterized his nation’s move away from nationalized production by saying, “After decades of oppression and tyranny, Iraq is getting back its riches for this generation and for the next.” Resistance within Iraq and around the world, however, has thus far prevented the passage of the Iraq Oil Law that would further open the country’s reserves to multinational corporations.

GUEST: Antonia Juhasz, Director of the Chevron Program at Global Exchange, author of “The Tyranny of Oil: the World’s Most Powerful industry and What We Must Do To Stop It,” available on December 8th on paperback.

Antonia Juhasz will speak in Los Angeles on December 17th at 6:30 pm at the Coalition for a Safe Environment, 1601 N. Wilmington Blvd.