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GUEST: Pratap Chatterjee, Managing Editor of Corp Watch and author of Iraq Inc (Seven Stories, 2004)

Kurdish lawmakers in the Iraqi parliament have announced that they will oppose an Iraqi oil law to regulate the nation’s key industry. However, the Kurdish bloc is not large enough to stop parliamentary approval on its own. The Kurds highly object to giving nearly 93% of Iraq’s proven oil reserves to the state owned National Oil Company. In fact, Kurdish legislators initially supported the draft oil law prior to technical additions made by the Iraq’s central government. Other law makers have criticized the proposed legislation on the grounds that it would open Iraq’s reserves quite generously to foreign oil companies. Meanwhile, it has been estimated that hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil are unaccounted for in Iraq daily. The Al Basra Oil Terminal and the Khawr Al Amaya Oil Terminal, despite being heavily guarded, continue to operate without an oil metering system. When properly functioning, meters measure how much crude oil flows in and out of such terminals. However, in the four years of U.S. occupation, meters have not been repaired, leading to speculations about black market operations and smuggling. Iraq’s proven oil reserves, estimated to be 115 billion barrels, are the third largest in the world.

For more information, visit www.corpwatch.org.

Read Pratap’s article on Alternet here: http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/51218/