- The Guardian, Saturday 18 April 2009
Expectations that foreign companies will cash in on Iraqi oil riches were called into question last night after a key parliamentary body in Baghdad pledged to “push Shell out” and halt a forthcoming licensing round.
The warning from Jabir Khalifa Jabir, secretary of the Iraqi parliament’s oil and gas committee, was seen by financial analysts as a serious threat to western investment opportunities in a country that holds the second-largest oil reserves in the world.
Shell has been considered a frontrunner in the race to seize control of the Iraqi energy sector after signing a $4bn deal to process and market gas from the south of the country and ship it, possibly to Britain as liquefied natural gas (LNG).
But the preliminary agreement – and a subsequent one with China National Petroleum Corporation – were unconstitutional and detrimental to Iraq‘s economic interests, said Jabir, who worked for more than 15 years at Iraq’s state-run Southern Gas Company.
“We are going to do everything we can to revoke this deal and to push Shell out,” Jabir told Reuters. “Both these deals are illegal because they didn’t go through parliament. The companies and their lawyers knew the old Iraqi oil law very well,” he added, saying that any new deals Baghdad signs in bidding rounds under way with BP and others would also be subject to revocation.
The oil ministry has said it does not need parliament’s approval to sign new deals, but Jabir argues Iraqi law 97 clearly states all arrangements of this nature must be passed by parliament. The committee had studied the preliminary Shell deal for the past six months and all members have concluded that it is illegal, he said.
The arrangement with Shell and the wider oil licensing round have been highly controversial already because many critics believed they were unduly influenced by the US and British, who occupied the country after toppling Saddam Hussein in 2003. Critics saw the invasion as a “war for oil” and believed it would open the way for US and UK oil companies to regain assets seized from them decades earlier through nationalisation.
Analysts at IHS Global Insight, the economic forecasting group, said the latest developments were alarming, especially given Shell was expected to formalise its southern gas deal within the next few weeks. “The Shell deal looks increasingly like a litmus test for progress on all Iraq’s oil and gas projects, with any potential failure likely to remove most of the political legitimacy from the oil ministry’s interpretation of Iraq’s constitution and oil law,” they argued.
Shell declined to comment on Jabir’s remarks with a spokesman at head office in the Hague saying they were a “matter for the ministry of oil” in Baghdad. But he added: “We believe our experience in large-scale integrated gas projects and knowledge of Iraq has contributed to the decision to work with Shell.”
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
