Sunday 27 June 2010

Deepwater: the real story?

Gulf Oil Spill "Could Go on Years and Years" ...

F. William Engdahl

Global Research, June 11, 2010

The Obama Administration and senior BP officials are frantically working not to stop the world’s worst oil disaster, but to hide the true extent of the actual ecological catastrophe. Senior researchers tell us that the BP drilling hit one of the oil migration channels and that the leakage could continue for years unless decisive steps are undertaken, something that seems far from the present strategy.

In a recent discussion, Vladimir Kutcherov , Professor at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden and the Russian State University of Oil and Gas, predicted that the present oil spill flooding the Gulf Coast shores of the United States “could go on for years and years... many years.” [1]

According to Kutcherov, a leading specialist in the theory of abiogenic deep origin of petroleum, “What BP drilled into was what we call a ‘migration channel,’ a deep fault on which hydrocarbons generated in the depth of our planet migrate to the crust and are accumulated in rocks, something like Ghawar in Saudi Arabia.”[2] Ghawar, the world’s most prolific oilfield has been producing millions of barrels daily for almost 70 years with no end in sight. According to the abiotic science, Ghawar like all elephant and giant oil and gas deposits all over the world, is located on a migration channel similar to that in the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico.

As I wrote at the time of the January 2010 Haiti earthquake disaster,[3] Haiti had been identified as having potentially huge hydrocasrbon reserves, as has neighboring Cuba. Kutcherov estimates that the entire Gulf of Mexico is one of the planet’s most abundant accessible locations to extract oil and gas, at least before the Deepwater Horizon event this April.

“In my view the heads of BP reacted with panic at the scale of the oil spewing out of the well,” Kutcherov adds. “What is inexplicable at this point is why they are trying one thing, failing, then trying a second, failing, then a third. Given the scale of the disaster they should try every conceivable option, even if it is ten, all at once in hope one works. Otherwise, this oil source could spew oil for years given the volumes coming to the surface already.” [4]

He stresses, “It is difficult to estimate how big this leakage is. There is no objective information available.” But taking into consideration information about the last BP ‘giant’ discovery in the Gulf of Mexico, the Tiber field, some six miles deep, Kutcherov agrees with Ira Leifer a researcher in the Marine Science Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara who says the oil may be gushing out at a rate of more than 100,000 barrels a day.[5]

What the enormoity of the oil spill does is to also further discredit clearly the oil companies’ myth of “peak oil” which claims that the world is at or near the “peak” of economical oil extraction. That myth, which has been propagated in recent years by circles close to former oilman and Bush Vice President, Dick Cheney, has been effectively used by the giant oil majors to justify far higher oil prices than would be politically possible otherwise, by claiming a non-existent petroleum scarcity crisis.
Obama & BP Try to Hide

According to a report from Washington investigative journalist Wayne Madsen, “the Obama White House and British Petroleum are covering up the magnitude of the volcanic-level oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and working together to limit BP’s liability for damage caused by what can be called a ‘mega-disaster.’” [6] Madsen cites sources within the US Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, and Florida Department of Environmental Protection for his assertion.

Obama and his senior White House staff, as well as Interior Secretary Salazar, are working with BP’s chief executive officer Tony Hayward on legislation that would raise the cap on liability for damage claims from those affected by the oil disaster from $75 million to $10 billion. According to informed estimates cited by Madsen, however, the disaster has a real potential cost of at least $1,000 billion ($1 trillion). That estimate would support the pessimistic assessment of Kutcherov that the spill, if not rapidly controlled, “will destroy the entire coastline of the United States .”

According to the Washington report of Madsen, BP statements that one of the leaks has been contained, are “pure public relations disinformation designed to avoid panic and demands for greater action by the Obama administration., according to FEMA and Corps of Engineers sources.” [7]

The White House has been resisting releasing any “damaging information” about the oil disaster. Coast Guard and Corps of Engineers experts estimate that if the ocean oil geyser is not stopped within 90 days, there will be irreversible damage to the marine eco-systems of the Gulf of Mexico , north Atlantic Ocean, and beyond. At best, some Corps of Engineers experts say it could take two years to cement the chasm on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico. [8]

Only after the magnitude of the disaster became evident did Obama order Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano to declare the oil disaster a “national security issue.” Although the Coast Guard and FEMA are part of her department, Napolitano’s actual reasoning for invoking national security, according to Madsen, was merely to block media coverage of the immensity of the disaster that is unfolding for the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean and their coastlines.

The Obama administration also conspired with BP to hide the extent of the oil leak, according to the cited federal and state sources. After the oil rig exploded and sank, the government stated that 42,000 gallons per day were gushing from the seabed chasm. Five days later, the federal government upped the leakage to 210,000 gallons a day. However, submersibles monitoring the escaping oil from the Gulf seabed are viewing television pictures of what they describe as a “volcanic-like” eruption of oil.

When the Army Corps of Engineers first attempted to obtain NASA imagery of the Gulf oil slick, which is larger than is being reported by the media, it was reportedly denied the access. By chance, National Geographic managed to obtain satellite imagery shots of the extent of the disaster and posted them on their web site. Other satellite imagery reportedly being withheld by the Obama administration, shows that what lies under the gaping chasm spewing oil at an ever-alarming rate is a cavern estimated to be the size of Mount Everest. This information has been given an almost national security-level classification to keep it from the public, according to Madsen’s sources.

The Corps of Engineers and FEMA are reported to be highly critical of the lack of support for quick action after the oil disaster by the Obama White House and the US Coast Guard. Only now has the Coast Guard understood the magnitude of the disaster, dispatching nearly 70 vessels to the affected area. Under the loose regulatory measures implemented by the Bush-Cheney Administration, the US Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service became a simple “rubber stamp,” approving whatever the oil companies wanted in terms of safety precautions that could have averted such a disaster. Madsen describes a state of “criminal collusion” between Cheney’s former firm, Halliburton, and the Interior Department’s MMS, and that the potential for similar disasters exists with the other 30,000 off-shore rigs that use the same shut-off valves. [9]

Silence from Eco groups?... Follow the money

Without doubt at this point we are in the midst of what could be the greatest ecological catastrophe in history. The oil platform explosion took place almost within the current loop where the Gulf Stream originates. This has huge ecological and climatological consequences.

A cursory look at a map of the Gulf Stream shows that the oil is not just going to cover the beaches in the Gulf, it will spread to the Atlantic coasts up through North Carolina then on to the North Sea and Iceland. And beyond the damage to the beaches, sea life and water supplies, the Gulf stream has a very distinct chemistry, composition (marine organisms), density, temperature. What happens if the oil and the dispersants and all the toxic compounds they create actually change the nature of the Gulf Stream? No one can rule out potential changes including changes in the path of the Gulf Stream , and even small changes could have huge impacts. Europe, including England, is not an icy wasteland due to the warming from the Gulf Stream.

Yet there is a deafening silence from the very environmental organizations which ought to be at the barricades demanding that BP, the US Government and others act decisively.

That deafening silence of leading green or ecology organizations such as Greenpeace, Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club and others may well be tied to a money trail that leads right back to the oil industry, notably to BP. Leading environmental organizations have gotten significant financial payoffs in recent years from BP in order that the oil company could remake itself with an “environment-friendly face,” as in “beyond petroleum” the company’s new branding.

The Nature Conservancy, described as “the world’s most powerful environmental group,”[10] has awarded BP a seat on its International Leadership Council after the oil company gave the organization more than $10 million in recent years. [11]

Until recently, the Conservancy and other environmental groups worked with BP in a coalition that lobbied Congress on climate-change issues. An employee of BP Exploration serves as an unpaid Conservancy trustee in Alaska. In addition, according to a recent report published by the Washington Post, Conservation International, another environmental group, has accepted $2 million in donations from BP and worked with the company on a number of projects, including one examining oil-extraction methods. From 2000 to 2006, John Browne, then BP's chief executive, sat on the CI board.

Further, The Environmental Defense Fund, another influential ecologist organization, joined with BP, Shell and other major corporations to form a Partnership for Climate Action, to promote ‘market-based mechanisms’ (sic) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Environmental non-profit groups that have accepted donations from or joined in projects with BP include Nature Conservancy, Conservation International, Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club and Audubon. That could explain why the political outcry to date for decisive action in the Gulf has been so muted. [12]

Of course those organizations are not going to be the ones to solve this catastrophe. The central point at this point is who is prepared to put the urgently demanded federal and international scientific resources into solving this crisis. Further actions of the likes of that from the Obama White House to date or from BP can only lead to the conclusion that some very powerful people want this debacle to continue. The next weeks will be critical to that assessment.


F. William Engdahl is the author of A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order

Notes

[1] Vladimir Kutcherov, telephone discussion with the author, June 9, 2010.
[2] Ibid.
[3] F. William Engdahl, The Fateful Geological Prize Called Haiti, Global Research.ca, January 30, 2010, accessed in
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17287
[4] Vladimir Kutcherov, op. cit.
[5] Ira Leifer, Scientist: BP Well Could Be Leaking 100,000 Barrels of Oil a Day, June 9, 2010, accessed in
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/9/scientist_bp_well_could_be_leaking
[6] Wayne Madsen, The Coverup: BPs Crude Politics and the Looming Environmental Mega Disaster, May 6, 2010, accessed in http://oilprice.com/Environment/Oil-Spills/The-Cover-up-BP-s-Crude-Politics-and-the-Looming-Environmental-Mega-Disaster.html
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Tim Findley, Natures’ Landlord, Range Magazine, Spring 2003.
[11] Joe Stephens, Nature Conservancy faces potential backlash from ties with BP, Washington Post, May 24, 2010, accessed in
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/23/AR2010052302164.html
[12] Ibid.

Monday 25 December 2006

Saudi policy divisions

Saudis dispute strategy on Iran

By Philip Sherwell,

Sunday Telegraph 24 December 2006

Prince Turki al-Faisal, the kingdom's former intelligence chief who was previously ambassador to Britain, stunned diplomats in Washington when he abandoned his prestigious posting after just 18 months.
But according to The Washington Post, Prince Turki was constantly undermined by his predecessor and brother-in-law, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who represented Saudi Arabia for 22 years in the US and was an old friend of President George W Bush.
Quoting sources close to the family, the newspaper said Prince Bandar, now the Saudis' national security adviser, returned secretly to America – sometimes monthly – for unofficial talks with US officials including Vice-President Dick Cheney. Prince Turki was not usually informed, and the Saudi embassy resorted to sending diplomats to the airport to check whether Prince Bandar's jet was in the country.
The focus of the royal rift is apparently a dispute over how Saudi Arabia, the home of the Sunni branch of Islam, should counter the growing regional influence of Iran, the Middle East's major Shia Muslim power.
Prince Turki publicly supported diplomatic negotiations with Iran, which backs armed groups hostile to the West in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority, and is pursuing a nuclear weapons programme. But Prince Bandar was reportedly lobbying to maintain the US policy of isolating Teheran.
Prince Bandar, who has the ear of King Abdullah, was alarmed that the Iraq Study Group recommended direct US talks with Iran about Iraq. As The Sunday Telegraph reported earlier this month, Mr Cheney was summoned to Riyadh to hear Saudi concerns amid reports that the kingdom might intervene to help Iraq's Sunni minority against the Iranian-backed Shias. Prince Bandar flew to Washington, for further talks with US officials, shortly before Prince Turki resigned.
In an apparent side-effect of the royal split, several US lobbying groups and event organisers told The Washington Post that they were owed millions of dollars for work conducted recently for the Saudi embassy.
No Saudi official was available in Washington yesterday to comment, but one outside adviser said: "Of course there are sometimes differences on how to approach policy, but the royal family remains very close."

Bickering Saudis Struggle for an Answer to Iran’s Rising Influence in the Middle East

Hassan M Fattah

New York Times 21 December 2006

RIYADH, Dec. 21 — At a late-night reading this week, a self-styled poet raised his hand for silence and began a riff on neighboring Iraq in the old style of Bedouin storytellers.
“Saddam Hussein was a real leader who deserved our support,” he began, making up the lines as he went. “He kept Iraq stable and peaceful,” he added, “and most of all he fought back the Iranians.” He continued, “His one mistake was invading Kuwait.”
Across the kingdom, in both official and casual conversation, once-quiet concern over the chaos in Iraq and Iran’s growing regional influence has burst into the open.
Saudi newspapers now denounce Iran’s growing power. Religious leaders here, who view Shiism as heresy, have begun talking about a “Persian onslaught” that threatens Islam. In the salons and diwans of Riyadh, the “Iranian threat” is raised almost as frequently as the stock market.
“Iran has become more dangerous than Israel itself,” said Sheik Musa bin Abdulaziz, editor of the magazine Al Salafi, who describes himself as a moderate Salafi, a fundamentalist Muslim movement. “The Iranian revolution has come to renew the Persian presence in the region. This is the real clash of civilizations.”
Many here say a showdown with Iran is inevitable. After several years of a thaw in relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, Saudis are growing concerned that Iran may build a nuclear bomb and become the de facto superpower in the region.
In recent weeks, the Saudis, with other Persian Gulf countries, have announced plans to develop peaceful nuclear power. Saudi officials publicly welcomed the Iraqi Harith al-Dhari, whose Muslim Scholars Association has links to the insurgency, during a visit in October, and they have indicated that they may support Iraq’s Sunnis over the majority Shiites with links to Iran. All were meant to send a message to Iran.
“You need to create a strategic challenge to Iran,” said Steve Clemons, senior fellow and director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. “To some degree, what the Saudis are doing is puffing up because they see nobody else in the region doing so.”
Yet a growing debate here has centered on how Iran should be confronted: head on, with Saudi Arabia throwing its lot in with the full force of the United States, or diplomatically, with a grand bargain Iran would find hard to refuse?
The apparent split burst into the open last week when Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Washington, abruptly resigned after just 15 months. The resignation is seen by many here as part of a long-running battle over Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy.
On Tuesday, Prince Saud al-Faisal, the country’s ailing foreign minister, confirmed the ambassador’s resignation, citing personal reasons. Privately some Saudi officials and analysts with knowledge of the situation say Prince Turki resigned over deep differences with Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the national security minister and former Washington ambassador, over how to deal with Iran.
Prince Bandar is believed to favor the tough American approach of confronting Iran, analysts say, while Prince Turki advocates more diplomatic tactics, including negotiating with Iran.
If this is the case, then the successor to Prince Turki as Saudi ambassador — Adel al-Jubeir, a foreign policy adviser to King Abdullah — is a wild card, Saudi and American officials said Thursday.
Polished and American-educated, Mr. Jubeir, 44, once worked for Prince Bandar when he was ambassador to Washington. Mr. Jubeir became well known as the public face of Saudi Arabia, defending Saudi policy after the Sept. 11 attacks, appearing on talk shows and escorting NBC’s White House correspondent at the time, Campbell Brown, around town.
But Saudi officials said that Mr. Jubeir did not necessarily share Prince Bandar’s opinions. “Basically, the king is putting his own man in America,” one Saudi official said. “Adel will be a direct line between the king and the administration.”
Mr. Clemons, whose blog, The Washington Note, first reported Mr. Jubeir’s appointment on Wednesday, said Mr. Jubeir “is someone who can help de-escalate tensions between quadroons of the royal family. I don’t think he necessarily brings Bandar’s views on Iran to the table.”
Just days before President Bush met with the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Maliki the outlines of what seemed to be a new plan were made public by Nawaf Obaid, a Saudi security consultant. In an op-ed article in The Washington Post, he said that if the United States withdrew from Iraq, the Saudis would back the Sunnis “to stop Iranian-backed Shiite militias from butchering Iraqi Sunnis.”
Saudi Arabia said Mr. Obaid did not speak on its behalf, and he was subsequently dismissed from his position. He is widely expected to return to the government in some capacity. And King Abdullah warned Vice President Dick Cheneyduring a meeting in Riyadh three weeks ago that Saudi Arabia would back the Sunnis if the Americans withdrew from Iraq and a civil war ensued.
“The possibility of having conflict is very high,” said Abdelrahman Rashid, managing director of the satellite news channel Al Arabiya and a respected Saudi columnist. “Who will face the Iranians tomorrow? Just the Israelis alone? I don’t think that is possible.” Prince Turki, Mr. Clemons and palace insiders say, had lobbied Washington for a broader policy that eschews a military confrontation in favor of a policy that will strike Iran’s interests. In effect, Mr. Clemons said, Prince Turki had sought a plan mirroring some of the recommendations in the Iraq Study Group report but with a harder edge.
“Turki is not playing nice guy at all,” he said. “Essentially, the Saudis are engagers. They want to weave together a blurry ambiguity to what they want to do.”
A member of the Saudi royal family with knowledge of the discussions between Mr. Cheney and King Abdullah said the king had presented Mr. Cheney with a plan to raise oil production to force down the price, in hopes of causing economic turmoil for Iran without becoming directly involved in a confrontation.
Shortly afterward, Mr. Obaid’s op-ed article was published, building on earlier public comments that Saudi Arabia intends to get serious about Iran and may back Sunnis in Iraq in the event of an abrupt United States pullout. Neither Prince Bandar nor Prince Turki was available for comment for this article. An adviser to Prince Bandar said there were no divisions over policy, and many officials have been at pains in recent days to prove there is no split.
Many Saudis have grown openly critical of the country’s policy on Iraq, citing its adherence to an American-centric policy at the cost of Saudi interests. More pessimistic analysts here say the country has lost significant strength and stature in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian areas, while Iran, with its populist, anti-American agenda, has benefited.
“The Saudis made a big mistake by following the Americans when they had no plan,” said Khalid al-Dakhil, a professor of political sociology at King Saud University in Riyadh. “If the Saudis had intervened earlier and helped the Sunnis they could have found a political solution to their differences, instead of the bloodshed we are seeing today.”
Last week, a group of prominent Saudi clerics and university professors called on the government to begin actively backing Iraq’s Sunnis. The clerics described what they called a Persian-Jewish partnership besieging the Sunnis.
“There is a segment in this country that will do everything the U.S. wants,” said Turki al-Rasheed, who runs a group that seeks to encourage democracy in the Persian Gulf. “But fortunately the big leaders know this whole agenda will take us to hell.”

Rasheed Abou al-Samh contributed reporting from Jidda, Saudi Arabia, and Helene Cooper from Washington.