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Gulf Oil Spill

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Messenger: Nazarite_I Sent: 2/25/2012 10:18:21 PM
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I don't know anything about the redline agreement, but make sure the I looks at British Petrolium from the root because they are a slippery viper. This madness I and I see going on with Iran links back to that company when it was the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. Even back then they were powerful enough for the CIA and MI6 to topple the independant Iranian government on their behalf and install the Shah as a dictator. That ended with the revolution that put the Ayatollah into power and sets the order in Iran today.
So this war thing that I and I see babylon going on with now is just unfinished business to them.

Blessed love


Messenger: Eleazar Sent: 3/12/2012 9:12:51 AM
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I finished British Petroleum and the Redline Agreement: The West's Secret Pact to Get Mideast Oil.

The Redline Agreement was an agreement signed in 1928 between various western oil companies wanted to get a share in the Turkish Petroleum Company, a jointly owned company that eventually became the Iraqi Petroleum Company. The Turkish Petroleum Company had a virtual monopoly on Middle East oil from 1925 to 1961.

The Redline agreement was signed between Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian( an Armenian oil baron who owned 5 percent of the Turkish Petroleum company), Anglo-Persian Oil Company (later BP), Anglo-Saxon Petroleum( owned by Shell), Compagnie Francaise des Petroles(a French company now called Total), the Near East Development company (an American oil corporation composed of Standard oil of New Jersey, Standard oil of New York, Atlantic Refining, Pan American oil, and Gulf Petroleum that later became Exxon Mobile), Partex (owned by Nubar Gulbenkian, Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian's son), and the Turkish Petroleum Company.

The "Redline" refers to the redline drawn on a map of the Middle East that encompassed the territories of the former Ottoman empire. The Redline agreement effectively transferred control of Iraq to not just Britain, but all the major western powers, and sowed the seeds of much of the conflict of the 20th century.

The British had been interested in Mesopotamia since the days of the Ottoman empire because of the potential oil deposits in Iraq and to protect their petroleum refinery in Abadan, Persia. When the First World War started and Turkey entered the war on the side of the Central Powers, Britain invaded Mesopotamia and took over the country. Britain created the territory known as "Iraq" by uniting the three Ottoman vilayets of Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra into the country of Iraq, even though these provinces had very different ethnic and religious groups. Britain then governed Iraq as a colonial power throughout the 1920's by appointed puppet governments and fighting jihadist insurgencies. Britain used chemical weapons to surpress these Iraqi insurgencies. Britain granted independence to Iraq in 1932, but retained oil rights and military bases in the country. During the Second World war, Britain fought a war against the Iraqis and their German advisors to prevent the Iraqi oil from falling into Nazi control. After the Second World War, the Hashemite monarchy governed until it was overthrown by a coup in 1958. There were various military dictators that ruled Iraq until the Ba'ath party came to power in 1968, and eventually Saddam Hussein. Then came the Iran-Iraq war, Persian Gulf War, and the 2003 American-led Iraq War.

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The Red Line Agreement is the name given to an agreement signed by partners in the Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC) on July 31, 1928. The aim of the agreement was to formalize the corporate structure of TPC and bind all partners to a self-denial clause that prohibited any of its shareholders from independently seeking oil interests in the ex-Ottoman territory. It marked the creation of an oil monopoly, or cartel, of immense influence, spanning a vast territory. The cartel preceded easily by three decades the birth of another cartel, the Organization Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which was formed in 1960.

It has been said that, at a meeting in 1928, Calouste Gulbenkian, an Armenian businessman and philanthropist, drew a red line on a map of the Middle East demarcating the boundaries of the area where the self-denial clause would be in effect.[1] Gulbenkian said this was boundary of the Ottoman Empire he knew in 1914. He should know, he added, because he was born in it and lived in it. The other partners looked on it attentively and did not object. They had already anticipated such a boundary. (According to some accounts, the “red line” was not drawn by Gulbenkian but by a French representative.) Except for Gulbenkian, the partners were the supermajors of today. Within the “red line” lie the entire ex-Ottoman territory in the Middle East including the Arabian Peninsula (plus Turkey) but excluding Kuwait. Kuwait was excluded as it was meant to be a preserve for the British.

Years later, Walter C. Teagle of Standard Oil of New Jersey remarked that the agreement was “a damn bad move”.[2] However, it served to define the sphere of operations of TPC's successor, the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC). The writer Stephen Hemsley Longrigg, a former IPC employee, noted that "the Red Line Agreement, variously assessed as a sad case of wrongful cartelization or as an enlightened example of international co‑;;;;;;operation and fair-sharing, was to hold the field for twenty years and in large measure determined the pattern and tempo of oil development over a large part of the Middle East".[3] Apart from Saudi Arabia and Bahrain where ARAMCO and BAPCO prevailed, IPC monopolized oil exploration inside the Red Line during this period.

American oil companies Standard New Jersey and Socony-Vacuum were partners in IPC and therefore bound by the Red Line Agreement. When they were offered a partnership with ARAMCO to develop the oil resources of Saudi Arabia, their partners in IPC refused to release them from the Agreement. After the Americans claimed that World War II had ended the Red Line Agreement, protracted legal proceedings with Gulbenkian followed.[4] Eventually the case was settled out of court and the American partners joined ARAMCO. [5] Although the Red Line Agreement was effectively a dead letter after this date, IPC continued to operate.
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Messenger: Eleazar Sent: 3/12/2012 9:16:37 AM
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Here's a map of the Redline Agreement:




Messenger: Eleazar Sent: 3/12/2012 9:38:26 AM
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The Anglo Persian oil company changed its name to the Anglo-Iranian oil company and then the British Petroleum company limited in 1954 following the CIA and M16 led coup against the Iranian leader Muhammad Mossadegh, who had overthrown the Shah of Iran and nationalized Iran's oil.

The Shah of Iran was friendly towards the west but was overthrown in 1979.

Here is a good documentary:




Messenger: Ark I Sent: 3/12/2012 7:24:53 PM
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Same old dragon.



Messenger: Eleazar Sent: 4/18/2012 7:44:01 AM
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Iraq's clash of old and new: Oil pipelines in Babylon


Iraq's clash of old and new: Oil pipelines in Babylon
Rami Ruhayem By Rami Ruhayem BBC News, Hilla, Iraq
Babylonian ruins in Hilla, Iraq Iraq is bidding to have the ruins of Babylon listed as a World Heritage site
Continue reading the main story
Related Stories

Shell and Iraq in new energy deal
Working to save ancient Babylon

Standing on a dusty mound on the outskirts of al-Hilla, two Iraqi officials have an argument about what lies underneath.

One thing is certain: three pipelines carrying oil products and liquid gas from Basra in the south to Baghdad pass under the hill. Two of them were built in the late 1970s and early 80s, and the third was just completed a month ago.

But according to Hussein Falah al-Ammari of the State Board of Antiquities, there's something more valuable than oil under that hill.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

It's just dust around here”

Muayyed al-Sultani Pipeline company representative

"We're standing on the outer wall of the ancient city of Babylon," he said. "The pipelines penetrate the city from both sides, cutting through the northern wall where we are now, through the city and all the way to the southern wall 1.5km (0.9 miles) south from here."

Facing the antiquities official is Muayyed al-Sultani from the pipeline company in Babylon. Dressed neatly in a suit and tie, he's accompanied by a camera crew from the Ministry of Oil, as well as four soldiers. One of them flaunts a machine gun with a belt of rounds dangling from the bullet compartment.

"With all respect to the antiquities board," he says politely, "our opinion is that there are no ruins here."

The two men debated the powers of their respective ministries, the importance of the oil pipeline, and the value of Babylonian ruins. But the discussion was going nowhere.
An oil pipeline in Hilla, Iraq Oil is a key source of revenue for Iraq

The Ministry of Tourism has already taken the Ministry of Oil to court over the extension of the pipeline, which it says is unlawful because it endangers an archaeological site, and did not have the approval of the State Antiquities Board.

It says that unless the pipelines are diverted, the bid to get Babylon listed as a World Heritage Site will fail.
'Just dust'

On the surface, it's just a hill like any other in Iraq. Situated at the outskirts Hilla, the modern name for the ancient city of Babylon, it's dotted by thorny bushes and patches of dry grass, and surrounded by palm trees on all sides.

"It's just dust around here," said Mr Sultani, adding that while the pipeline was being extended, no traces of ruins were found.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

We could find military bases... or administrative centres”

Hussein Falah al-Ammari State Board of Antiquities

But Mr Ammari had a ready explanation. "It's the erosion over the millennia," he explained, insisting that about a metre underneath, the remains of the wall stood largely intact, preserved in "architectural detail".

Further in, he said, "we could find military bases, or private housing units or administrative centres".

But even if the court orders a diversion of the pipelines, there's no certainty that the bid to have Babylon listed as a World Heritage site will succeed.

Few would doubt the "outstanding universal value"' of the ancient city, but there are other criteria for being listed as a World Heritage Site.

Among them is "authenticity" of the ruins, and Babylon has already been compromised.
Ancient Glory

Within the inner city walls lie the remains of the palace built by Nebuchadnezzar the Second around 2,600 years ago: layer upon layer of reddish-brown bricks, windswept and eroded over the millennia. But piled on top of the ruins are new structures erected during the past decades.

Iraq's former President Saddam Hussein ordered the rebuilding of the ancient city at exactly the spot where the old one stood.
The reconstruction of Nebuchadnezzar's palace, built on top of the original ruins The reconstructions have compromised the authenticity of the ruins

The result is a mixture of old and new, and it is difficult to distinguish between the two.

The clash of the Iraqi ministries pits the demands of the modern age against the preservation of history. But it could also prove to be an example of history repeating itself.

Iraq's oil sector remains burdened with a variety of problems, but its potential is vast, and so are the geopolitical implications if it fulfils it.

Ancient Babylon was a bustling commercial hub. Merchants carrying goods from places like India, Persia, and Egypt passed through the city, generating wealth for its ambitious kings, and tempting them with dreams of glory.

In today's Iraq, it's the lure of oil that could prove impossible to resist.
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Messenger: Eleazar Sent: 12/5/2012 11:34:42 PM
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After the BP Spill
Back to Page One
BP Engulfed in Lawsuit Over 40-Day Texas Flare
Kristen Lombardi December 5th 2012
Center for Public Integrity

BP Protest

By now images of the April 2010 Gulf oil spill are indelible: The rig engulfed in smoke, oil gushing into the ocean, beaches stained on the coast. These images defined the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history — and sealed BP PLC’s reputation as a corporate polluter.

But two weeks before the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, killing 11 workers and spewing millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, BP was spewing a different kind of pollution — in a major case that has received far less attention.

This case involved dirtying the air around its refinery in Texas City. Throughout most of April and May of 2010, the Texas refinery belched massive amounts of pollutants — toxic chemicals including benzene, toluene and hydrogen sulfide — from a towering flare designed to burn only during emergencies. The single “emissions event,” as BP reported it to the state, triggered by an equipment breakdown, lasted 959 hours and 30 minutes — or 40 days .“The release went so long,” said Bruce Clawson, of Texas City’s emergency response division, which tracks such incidents. “We’ve never had a release go that long before.”

Now two years later, with the Gulf spill legal maze including $4.5 billion in fines, corporate guilty pleas to 14 criminal charges and an Environmental Protection Agency ban of the company from new government contracts, the so called “40-day Release” case churns slowly ahead, with a $500 billion lawsuit pending in Texas District Court.

Overshadowed by the spill, this litigation is also proving tangled for BP. As many as 47,830 residents, plant contractors, and nearby workers — more than the population of Texas City — are suing BP in multi-district legal proceedings based on “symptoms classically associated with exposure to benzene and other toxic chemicals that have been released by BP,” the suit alleges. Symptoms range from headaches and dizziness to nose bleeds and sore throats, mostly suffered in the immediate aftermath of the leak, their lawyers said.

BP disputes those contentions. In a six-paragraph statement to the Center for Public Integrity, the company downplayed the severity of the emissions, pointing out that neither its own fence-line monitors nor ambient air monitors stationed throughout Texas City detected elevated levels of benzene or other chemicals. “We do not believe that any negative health impacts resulted from flaring at BP’s Texas City refinery during this period,” BP said.

To environmentalists, the legal case carries deep significance. “This case is huge,” said Matthew Tejada, of the environmental group Air Alliance Houston. Too often, he contends, refiners calculate that it’s cheaper to pay a fine than to make long term fixes. He calls it “the cost of doing business in Texas.”

If plaintiffs successfully hold BP accountable for the 40-day release, Tejada believes, “It’d be a sea change for the way that industry calculates its actions.” Prompted by the incident, the EPA is now investigating whether BP’s flaring techniques, in general, comply with the federal Clean Air Act.

The 40-day flare
On April 6, 2010, a fire erupted inside the “100-J” compressor in the Texas City refinery’s ultracracker unit. Sparked by a seal failure, the flame forced engineers to shut down what amounts to a crucial pollution-control device. Rather than stop production to make repairs, managers opted to burn off the gases through an emergency flare. It lasted 40 days.

By May 16, when the flaring stopped, the refinery had pumped out at least 513,795 pounds of more than 20 distinct chemicals — including 17,372 pounds of benzene, 37,520 pounds of nitrogen oxides, and 190,866 pounds of carbon monoxide, BP informed the state that June.

“A conscious decision was made to flare knowing it was against the law and contrary to the operating permit,” asserts Tony Buzbee, liaison counsel for the plaintiff steering committee, who has taken 50 depositions of BP executives so far.

BP notified the state of an emissions event the day after it began, on April 7, as required by law. Texas City residents only learned of the 40-day release after the fact. Clawson, the city’s emergency response chief, remembers getting a phone call from a BP press officer around the time the company filed its final report; the officer told him the event had lasted a month, and caused some exceedances.

“Telling us after the fact is not really helpful,” said Clawson, who believes he would have classified the leak as a “level three” — the highest alert — because it was, in his words, “impacting us severely.” “Obviously,” he explains, “they exceeded the state standards reported. It’s logical to assume it impacted the city.”

Just how much BP surpassed the standards has become a central issue in the lawsuit. Plant supervisors calculated air emissions released during the 2010 event by assuming the flaring had destroyed 98 percent of the pollutants, a regulatory requirement. Lawyers for the plaintiffs are challenging that rate and citing a 2007 study by government regulators on “difficult to measure” emissions sources at the Texas City refinery.

In 2007, BP had allowed state and federal regulators to conduct an advanced form of emissions testing on three of its refinery flares and other pieces of equipment. The EPA found that one of them — the ultracracker flare — burned pollution at a rate “considerably worse than expected.” In some instances, the EPA found, the actual emissions from the ultracracker flare during the testing turned out to be six times greater than the amount reported by BP.

By BP’s own accounting, the ultracracker flare ended up spewing almost 98 percent of all the pollution in the 40-day release. “That means BP under-calculated its emissions,” contends Jim Tarr, a chemical engineer hired by lawyers for the plaintiffs. He said the difference between an efficiency rate of 98 percent and one of 50 percent, the lowest rate EPA found, can translate into orders of magnitude — 25 times more for any single component. “That’s not a tiny difference by any stretch of the imagination,” Tarr adds.

BP defends its calculations. In its statement, the company said the poor performance of the ultracracker flare occurred only “at very low flow rates, conditions not normally seen in refinery operations,” which differ from those of the 40-day release. After the regulators’ study, BP said, engineers calibrated the flare’s instruments and subjected it to “performance testing.” Passing those tests, the flare went back into service in 2009.

“We have multiple bases for concluding that the flared hydrogen steam was well combusted (with greater than 98 per cent efficiency) during the April/May 2010 flaring event,” BP wrote.

Yet internal company emails obtained through discovery in the lawsuit show that, in the months before the refinery’s release, BP’s environmental team was still discussing the ultracracker flare’s “poor destruction efficiency,” as measured in the 2007 tests.

One BP environmental specialist, in an April 8, 2009, email, cited the flare’s “old flare tip design” as a possible reason. Three months before the release, in a January 4, 2010, email, the same specialist said “under low flare gas flow rate conditions … combustion efficiency may be (significantly) below acceptable values.” “They knew exactly what they were doing,” said plaintiffs’ lawyer John Powell.

Other company documents show the 100-J compressor long having problems. Internal BP emails note that employees made repeated requests to upgrade the compressor, to no avail. Some BP engineers lamented that their past recommendations had fallen on deaf ears.

“I wish the project people who had fought us and justified overruling us were still here today to feel our pain,” one engineer wrote on April 15, 2010. “I sure hope they get good bonuses for F#$%ing [sic] us over.” “It just reminds me of a saying,” another employee replied. “‘The bitterness of poor quality will be remembered long after the joy of a low price is forgotten.’ ”

Six months before the release, those same emails reveal, the Texas City refinery experienced a strikingly similar flaring event, again sparked by the 100-J compressor. This emissions event lasted 28 days, from November to December 2009, and released almost as many toxic chemicals. Back then, the company reported spewing 54,312 pounds of pollutants into the air. In depositions, BP supervisors acknowledged under-reporting the release by more than 300,000 pounds.

BP declined to specifically address questions about the earlier emissions event, or about the emails gathered during the lawsuit. Buzbee, the counsel in the leak litigation, believes the two events reflect a pattern of conduct that proves, in his words, “BP doesn’t give a rat’s behind.”

Regulators have also raised questions. In 2010, the Texas attorney general sued BP for multiple violations of the Texas Clean Air Act, alleging “a pattern of unnecessary and unlawful emissions events” at the refinery — 72 in all from 2005 until that year. When the 40-day release occurred, the AG’s office filed a second suit. Both enforcement cases pegged BP’s “poor operation and maintenance of the refinery” as the cause of the leaks. By November 2011, BP had agreed to pay a fine of $50 million to settle the cases.

The first bellwether case involving six plaintiffs, half chosen by BP, half by the plaintiff steering committee, is slated for trial in September 2013. Lawyer Buzbee, who previously won a multi-million-dollar verdict against BP, predicts a legal tussle, perhaps ending in a settlement. “I don’t believe BP will allow me to try this case,” he adds.

The company, which intends to sell its Texas City refinery to Marathon Oil for $2.5 billion, said it will continue to fight the leak litigation. BP vows to “defend the lawsuits brought against it concerning this matter.”
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Messenger: Eleazar Sent: 1/20/2013 11:04:56 AM
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Islamic terrorists have attacked a joint-owned BP/Statoil natural gas complex in Algeria, possibly in response to French intervention in Mali.

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Algeria Gas Field

As the hostage crisis at a remote natural gas complex in Algeria continues to play out, there is anger in European capitals and beyond over the way Algerian authorities have dealt with the situation. The attack also has sparked fears for the vulnerability of foreign-owned assets across the region - and the implications for European security.

British Prime Minister David Cameron postponed a key speech on Europe to deal with the hostage crisis Friday. After chairing an emergency meeting with ministers, he briefed parliament. "I offered UK technical and intelligence support - including from experts in hostage negotiation and rescue - to help find a successful resolution. And I urged that we and other countries affected should be consulted before any action was taken," said Cameron.

Observers say that the diplomatic language masks the anger in European capitals and beyond over the way Algeria has handled the hostage crisis. Graham Hand is a former British ambassador to Algeria.

“I think they’ve let us down. But this is not untypical Algerian behavior. It is to do with the fact that Algerians are proud, independent people, they would want to sort this out in their own way,” he said.

Hand said the attack marks a new departure for Islamist terrorists in Algeria. “They really have not hit the oil and gas installations, of which there are many. And I think the fear must be that if this is the start of a new trend, then Algeria is going to have a huge problem,” said Hand.

It also will be a problem for the foreign companies that invest millions of dollars in resource-extraction across the Sahel, said international security consultant David Rubens.

“On a global scale, the loss of facilities is one thing, but losing 20 percent of your share price is a completely different situation. And I think that for a lot of people in the major boardrooms not far from here in central London, there are some serious discussions going on about the long-term implications. This is not a problem that’s going to go away in three weeks or three months,” said Rubens. British oil giant BP, the co-operator of the natural gas complex, has begun pulling out non-essential workers from Algeria.

And as armored vehicles continue to roll off military transport planes at Bamako airport, Rubens said the French intervention in Mali - which the attackers say prompted their action - has raised the stakes across the region.

“I think the likelihood of an attack of this nature being made on a facility of this nature had to be considered a possibility,” said Rubens. Hand said this is a critical moment for the region and for Europe.

“Libya hasn’t settled. There are still some question marks over Tunisia. Now we have Mali and we have trouble in Algeria. And I think we must not turn our backs on that region because it is only a very short distance from Europe,” said Hand.

Analysts say concerns that Islamic militancy is gaining a foothold just across the Mediterranean likely will build support for France’s intervention in Mali.
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