Something strange appears to be happening. I was going to post about a report of the suspension of oil exports from the Kirkuk oil fields today. The report is now no longer on the list of stories on the phone site which I accessed it on. As it was an AP feed, I tried to find it on the AP “newxsday.com” site. Nothing.
I now have another dire story listed from the AP report the head of the International Energy Authority warning of a worldwide energy crisis. This is not on the AP site. I have also searched the BBC and CNN sites for both stories.
The news may be so bad, we may have official or unofficial censorship to stop panic
Update [2005-9-3 14:11:57 by Londonbear]: The stories are available online but need to be searched for. The headline maybe should read “MS Broadcast Media” as I certainly have seen nothing about either story on CNN but will check BBC News 24 later. One factor may be that their business news staff are off for the weekend when no trading happens in the main markets.
I have a “third generation” mobile(cell) phone on which I can access the latest or most significant stories. These are relays of AP feeds. One I read about 3 hours ago on the bus to go shopping was about an explosion in Iraq early this morning US time. The report went into detail about the capacity of the two parallel pipes taking oil from the northern oilfields round Kirkuk with a capacity of about 1.1 million barrels per day in total. All exports were said to be stopped. This struck me as particularly significant as I seemed to remember that this was the amount of “slack” in the total world production before Katrina.
Now this story is on the phone but not the ordinary sites. I will have to transcribe it so please excuse errors.
BERLIN (Reuters)
The head of the West’s energy watchdog said in an interview on Saturday that Hurricane Katrina could spark a worldwide energy crisis if damage to the US refineries led to a big increase in US purchases of European petrol [gasoline]
“If the crisis affects all products then it’s a worldwide crisis. No one should thing this will be limited to the United States” Claude Mandil, head of the Paris-based Ineternational Energy Agency (IEA) told German daily Die Welt. “They are already buying gasoline in Europe. If the refineries are damaged, that will increase. Then this will become a worldwide crisis very quickly”.
Mandil told the paper that high oil prices represented a risk for global economic growth and urged consumers to alter their behaviour to save more energy and limit the fallout.
Poor countries were bound to suffer most from a recent surge in energy prices, which has been aggravated by Katrina and the sortages it has cause, he said.
On Friday the IEA launched a rescue plan to ease these shortages, saying its 26 members would release two million barrels per day of oil over a 30-day period.
US gasoline prices have spiked by nearly a fifth over the past week, pushing up prices around the world.
The interview itself was obviously before the bombing in Iraq but is still available in German on Die Welt site
Seems that either these two stories are being submerged in the Katrina coverage and the reports of the at the pump prices or something more sinister is going on. Could there be an unofficial agreement to downplay the story until after the Labor Day weekend in the USA?
By the way, I am sure like a lot of Europeans, I will be royally pissed off if our strategic reserves are only being sold or donated to the USA just to keep the pump price down and then we see huge traffic lines on CNN on either Labor Day or Thanksgiving.
Thanks for finding this.
I saw what I imagine was the original story a few days ago–a well bombed, half of Kirkuk’s export production (pipeline to Turkey) shut down. Two inconsistancies to the mild tone of the story was the casual mention that the well head was damaged, and that the fire was still spreading. These two facts could only be possible if the disruption were larger than indicated.
It looks like fire may have brought the rest of the installation down.
This means only the south (Basra) remains open. Iraqi oil may go off line soon. In truth I am surprised it has continued at half levels as long as it has.
Can’t imagine they wouldn’t be censoring. Thanks for finding the leaks. Keep up the good work!
According to the Washington Post. The Kirkuk pipeline is down. Insurgents set fire to a leak and it spread to catch the pipeline on fire. Before the war the pipeline pumped 1.5 million barrels a day. Currently before this shutdown it was pumping 200,000 barrels a day.
Which does bring up the question of how much total oil was Iraq exporting before the war and what do they pump now. I see a negative difference of 1.5 million barrels a day just from these stats.
Why doesn’t the press make more of this difference when talking about oil prices before the hurricane. Instead of saying its stronger demand this seems to be a far larger part of the problem (Iraq War)then they are saying.
If nothing else, this should speak volumes about the necessity of developing alternative energy sources and eliminating our dependence on oil.
since the military was sent in. You know that Bush believes that no dead bodies should be shown on tv, nor any real carnage. So we haven’t seen too much of what is going on since Bush finally okayed the troops coming in.
Heavily armed Drug Enforcement Agents prepare topatrol down Canal Street in the besieged city of
New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.
AP Photo/Dave Martin
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TEHERAN (DPA) Sept. 3, 2005 — Five oil wells in the southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz were damaged and had to be shut down after several blasts, ISNA news agency reported on Saturday. The blasts occurred last Thursday but the first reports came out on Saturday.
Gholam-Reza Shariati, security chief in Ahvaz told ISNA, that the explosions were caused by hand-made bombs. They left no casualties but the damages were still unclear and to be estimated by oil experts, he said.
No group has yet declared responsibility for the blasts but sabotage acts in Ahvaz, capital of the Khuzestan province, are usually staged by Iranian Arab separatist guerrillas calling themselves the “Revolutionary Martyr Guards of Al-Ahvaz”.
Subversive acts – CIA support?
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The mounting prices of oil, registered during the past two years, have increased the financial surpluses of the Arab oil-producing countries. This, in turn, has boosted the available foreign investments to more than $360 billion.
$$$ buys a lot of freedom – who needs democrazy. Thanks George & Dick – we’ll always be in your … ehh our debt. Sure, let Carlyle – James Baker III – have its share.
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Kirkuk lines to Ceyhan Turkey have been up and down like a yoyo ever since we invaded. This thing has been holed and blown up a number of times. You are correct that it is holding back about 1-1.5 MMBD of crude.
Iraq could/should be producing 3 to 3.5 MMBD. Managing 1 to 1.5 due to resistance operations and terrible condition of the equipment.
I suspect no one notices because it isn’t much of a change from last month or the month before.