Oil Industry Headlines: Week of January 18
George Clooney has been invited to Nigeria by the country’s most influential militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND). According to the Associated Press, MEND congratulated Clooney on his recent appointment as a UN “messenger of peace” and “invited him to visit the impoverished region, which has been wracked by two years of fighting, bombings and kidnapping of foreign workers.” The group also requested that the United Nations intervene in the country’s affairs, saying that if tensions are allowed to escalate the resulting violence will exceed the crisis in Darfur.
Weather concerns prompted the closure of several major Mexican oil ports, reported Reuters. On Sunday, three ports responsible for shipping about 80 percent of the 1.7 million barrels exported each day were closed.
In a recent Iraqi investment update we covered the dilemma facing oil companies: “According to the Financial Times, oil companies ‘can wait for the central government in Baghdad to agree to a new oil law that will give them a legal framework in which they can operate, and for the security situation to become manageable. Or they can press ahead and sign agreements with the Kurdistan Regional Government, the authority in the autonomous north of Iraq, at the risk of souring relations with Baghdad and shutting themselves out of deals in the rest of the country.’” For those who gambled and forged deals with the KRG, the road ends here. Baghdad has kept its word and created a blacklist that nullifies current deals and blocks oil companies that signed with the KRG from operating in Iraq.
Published Thursday, January 24th, 2008 at 6:07 pm and filed under Industry News.