What does Libya have to do with oil?

I’ve read in almost every thread on Libya that western intervention is “all about the oil” but I’m struggling to see how one can come to this conclusion.

Prior to the unrest western relations with Libya were improving with a number of western companies (including Exxon, BP, Occidental and Eni*) gaining lucrative oil contracts. The protests and later rebellion has disrupted this activity and by supporting the rebels the west is prolonging this situation. It is also far from certain that any new Libyan government would continue cooperation with the west in regard to oil.

If the west simply wanted to secure oil supplies and contracts and maximise profits then wouldn’t backing Gaddafi (even if covertly) or at least not supporting the rebels have been more prudent and seen a quicker return to normality?

I’m not suggesting that the west wouldn’t act purely to secure oil I just don’t see how that can be claimed in this case; it seems like the cries of “oil!” are more an instinctual response than a reasoned analysis.

How has/will the west benefit from its action vis-à-vis oil?


news.bbc.co.uk...
www.upi.com...
www.independent.co.uk...

'The West is to be forgotten. We will not give them our oil' - Gaddafi

I think it is about there Fossil Fresh Water...



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Underneath all of the propaganda and BS, about everything, lies the truth. Here is an interesting tidbit that has certainly escaped scrutiny to date. Does it play any role in the drama?

The 1st of September marks the anniversary of the opening of the major stage of Libya's Great Man-Made River Project. This incredibly huge and successful water scheme is virtually unknown in the West, yet it rivals and even surpasses all our greatest development projects. The leader of the so-called advanced countries, the United States of America cannot bring itself to acknowledge Libya's Great Man-Made River. The West refuses to recognize that a small country, with a population no more than four million, can construct anything so large without borrowing a single cent from the international banks.

Im sure it has nothing or little to do with the oil. I do know that Libya has a very good quality of oil though. Sorry but I dont know much else about it.

reply to post by Mike_A


Easy; If the proponents of the claim that this is all about the oil do not continue to ramble it, they will lose one of their main arguments about how eeeevil The American Government are for their involvment.

30 billion investment there already. including black research, my guess. nuff said

they will say the same in syria, then iran. maybe even jordan, they are unstable enough.

reply to post by Rockdisjoint


That was just a few days ago well after western condemnation of Gaddafi and long after talk and planning of a no fly zone began.

Originally posted by Caji316
I think it is about there Fossil Fresh Water...



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Underneath all of the propaganda and BS, about everything, lies the truth. Here is an interesting tidbit that has certainly escaped scrutiny to date. Does it play any role in the drama?

The 1st of September marks the anniversary of the opening of the major stage of Libya's Great Man-Made River Project. This incredibly huge and successful water scheme is virtually unknown in the West, yet it rivals and even surpasses all our greatest development projects. The leader of the so-called advanced countries, the United States of America cannot bring itself to acknowledge Libya's Great Man-Made River. The West refuses to recognize that a small country, with a population no more than four million, can construct anything so large without borrowing a single cent from the international banks.

Ok so what do you think the US wants with the Water System? The river project has been completed. No money has been borrowed. So what can be done now? Wage a war and destroy the river system and rebuild or refinance by borrowing money from the world bank?

There is much to gain by taking on Qaddalfi. By removing him, the US, and allies can implement there own methods of extraction of oil. Why pay the regime mass quantities of money for that commodity, when you can take it by force for a fraction of the cost, then turn around and refine the product, and sell it for an ungodly amount of profitable return. The only reason to be in the oil rich countries, is for ..gee ..let me guess?? Oil perhaps?

From some reports, Libya produces about 1% of the worlds oil. Not a crippling amount, but still sizable. While a military invasion may only take a few weeks from a wester alliance, conflict will be ongoing for many years. With no remaining political structure it is up to the new force to decide on matters of governance, including oil contracts. With American bases in 140 or so countries it is standard practice that they will be sticking around once there. With the term 'no fly zone' getting twisted into 'bombing run' it is expected that the next phase of 'peace keepers' is actually the 'invasion force'.

Personally I hope that things do not go this far, but with one of Gaddafi's sons recently killed and his house bombed there is a conceded effort to introduce anarchy into the region. If the western alliance did have a more humanitarian approach to the situation then more diplomatic means would have been undertaken as with Egypt. There is a lot to running a state and to unexpedly remove a leader can get messy. I have failed to see the overriding public will for a legitimate removal of Gaddafi and in fact see overriding public support with his release of 1 million guns to help defend the nation in this current assault.

You probably dont like George Galloway , but he nails it when he says it's about OIL

Knowing that the highest regarded commodity is oil, and knowing that " he " who has the most rules, it would suggest that all major oil suppliers would be a " target " of control. Common sense people....

Originally posted by woodwardjnr
You probably dont like George Galloway.

You got that right! I LOVE HIM!

We should clone this guy and fill the congress with them!

What does Libya have to do with oil?

Some times you people really make me laugh .

List of countries by proven oil reserves
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Oil - proved reserves.

This is a list of countries by proven reserves of oil based on The World Factbook as of 1 January 2010.[1] According to CIA definition:

Proved reserves are those quantities of petroleum which, by analysis of geological and engineering data, can be estimated with a high degree of confidence to be commercially recoverable from a given date forward, from known reservoirs and under current economic conditions.

↓ Country↓ Reserves (bbl)↓ Share of World %↓
1 Saudi Arabia (more information) 264,600,000,000 19.00%
2 Canada (more information) 175,200,000,000 12.58%
3 Iran (more information) 137,600,000,000 9.88%
4 Iraq (more information) 143,000,000,000 8.26%
5 Kuwait (more information) 104,000,000,000 7.47%
6 United Arab Emirates (more information) 97,800,000,000 7.02%
7 Venezuela (more information) 97,770,000,000 7.02%
8 Russia (more information) 74,200,000,000 5.33%
9 Libya (more information) 47,000,000,000 3.38%
10 Nigeria (more information) 37,500,000,000 2.69%
11 Kazakhstan 30,000,000,000 2.15%
12 Qatar 25,410,000,000 1.82%
13 China 20,350,000,000 1.46%
14 United States (more information) 19,120,000,000 1.37%
15 Angola 13,500,000,000 0.97%
16 Algeria 13,420,000,000 0.96%
17 Brazil 13,200,000,000 0.95%
18 Mexico (more information) 12,420,000,000 0.89%
19 Azerbaijan 7,000,000,000 0.50%
20 Sudan 6,800,000,000 0.49%

According to April 2008 statistics from the Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook, global oil production in 2005 was 78.9 million barrels per day.

World consumption of oil per day was 80.3 million barrels for the same period, using up 1.7% more than what was produced.

1. Saudi Arabia … 11 million barrels per day (13.9% of estimated world total)

2. Russia … 9.9 million bpd (12.5%)

3. United States … 8.3 million bpd (10.5%)

4. Iran … 4.2 million bpd (5.3%)

5. Mexico … 3.8 million bpd (4.8%)

6. China … 3.7 million bpd (4.7%)

7. Canada … 3.1 million bpd (3.9%)

8. Norway … 3 million bpd (3.8%)

9. Venezuela … 2.8 million bpd (3.6%)

10. Kuwait … 2.7 million bpd (3.4%)
Other Big Oil Producing Countries in 2008 - (11 to 20)

11. United Arab Emirates … 2.5 million barrels per day (3.2% of estimated world total)

12. Nigeria … 2.4 million bpd (3.1%)

13. Iraq … 2.11 million bpd (2.7%)

14. Algeria … 2.1 million bpd (2.6%)

15. United Kingdom … 1.9 million bpd (2.4%)

16. Libya … 1.7 million bpd (2.2%)

17. Brazil … 1.6 million bpd (2%)

18. Kazakhstan … 1.4 million bpd (1.7%)

19. Angola … 1.3 million bpd (1.6%)

20. Qatar … 1.1 million bpd (1.4%)


Now working off these two lists break it down and see who are americas allies(puppets)
Not counting NAFTA , USA, MEXICO AND CANADA which makes North America # 1, and the countries on the list the US has invaded(for democracy) see who controls the most oil.

Nah, course it's not about the oil, I mean, it's not like the US is known for only invad-err, "peacekeeping" countries that have great natural resources that, coincidentally, the West is running short on...no, that can't be it.

Funny how all the countries that don't have oil or other resources needed by the West especially, are left to fight against their own, real tyrants, eh. Not even mainstream media coverage. Hmm.

Must be pure coincidence...

I still don’t see the logic, just repeats of the base claim.

The west was already extracting oil in Libya and exploring for more sources; the supply of oil was also not restricted whereas now that has been disrupted and likely will be for a while because of western intervention. Where does it gain by prolonging this unrest?

There is also no suggestion of “taking Libyan oil by force”, if that was the goal then the western powers have painted themselves into a corner by specifically denying themselves the legal right to use ground forces to occupy territory or act as an administrative force.

Perhaps the west could impose a puppet leader that would be more favourable than Gaddafi; someone claimed that this would be the case as there would be no remaining political structure but that is not true. The rebel leadership, the most likely post Gaddafi government, was already formed before the west began to get involved and has been successfully running the rebel held parts of the country for some time now. Added to that the point above about how 1973 specifically prohibited an occupational force. The idea of installing a puppet is a long shot.

Galloway makes the point that the intervention is about protecting oil investments but by favouring the rebels, who are an unknown quantity, isn’t the west placing these investments at greater risk than if we just let Gadaffi roll over the rebels. We know that Gaddafi was allowing British, American and Italian oil extraction and exploration but we don’t know what position the rebels will take.

The argument that this is about oil, to me, makes far too many assumptions about what they think will happen (boots on the ground, puppet leaders etc) rather than focusing on the evidence of what has happened.

reply to post by OptimisticPessimist

Nah, course it's not about the oil, I mean, it's not like the US is known for only invad-err, "peacekeeping" countries that have great natural resources that, coincidentally, the West is running short on...no, that can't be it.

What about Kosovo?

I think it's about oil, according to a wikileaks cable Qadhafi does business on his terms and maybe that is becoming a problem. I know the cable from 2008 but I don't see why things would have changed since then.

wikileaks

Intense competition among foreign oil and gas companies to book reserves in Libya, widely perceived to be one of the relatively few places in the world with significant unproven reserves of sweet, light crude and natural gas, has fueled the trend towards less profitable EPSA's.

IOC's have accepted stiffer terms based on their high expectations of Libya's hydrocarbon producing potential, the comparatively low cost of oil recovery in Libya, the generally high quality of Libyan crude, Libya's close proximity to European markets and rapidly rising oil and gas prices. Encouraged by the willingness of some IOC's to accept production shares as low as 7 percent under the EPSA IV framework, the NOC - led by former Prime Minister Shukhri Ghanem, reputedly a hard bargainer - has been pressing all IOC's to accept further reductions in their production share allocations to increase Libya's take. Striking a nationalist tone, Muammar al-Qadhafi explicitly referred in his June 11 speech on the occasion of the "evacuation" of U.S. and British military bases in Libya to efforts to renegotiate EPSA contracts as a manifestation of Libya's continued resolve to resist Western imperialism.

Whatever the reason is it is not what they are telling us, maybe each country has there own reason but these are armed rebels attacking their government not peaceful protesters? I don't think I would get away with that here in Canada, the army would be there in an instant even if it was peaceful with no weapons. I can't imagine what would happen if we tried to attempt an armed coup. I wonder if the US would come and defend us "rebels".

"Well, we're in Libya because of oil. And I think both Japan and the nuclear technology and Libya and this dependence that we have upon imported oil have both once again highlighted the need for the United States to have a renewable energy agenda going forward," Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) said on MSNBC.

www.realclearpolitics.com...




Even the Democrats know why we are in Libya.

Here is one good article that goes into the Libya oil and war situation. www.globalresearch.ca...