The list of winners is dominated by national oil companies. The international majors that once dominated the global oil industry are, by and large, absent.
That's quite a different story than in the 1920s, when Iraq was ruled by the United Kingdom under a League of Nations mandate. Then, after the discovery of huge reserves in 1927, oil production was monopolized by Iraq Petroleum, which was owned jointly by the predecessors to BP, Total, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil and a consortium of other U.S. oil companies. The Iraqi government, which had been promised a 20% share of the company in the San Remo Conference after World War I, was frozen out.
Given that history, it shouldn't be surprising that in the early 1960s, Public Law 80 appropriated more than 90% of the assets of Iraq Petroleum for the country. The nationalization of Iraq's oil industry was completed in 1966 with the formation of Iraq National Oil.
No comments:
Post a Comment