Here’s an excerpt from Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism on the war in Iraq and the price of oil. Click here for the full article.
Did the Iraq War Cause High Oil Prices?
"An oil economics specialist, Mamdouh Salameh, who advises the World Bank and the UN Industrial Development Organisation, contends that oil prices would be at less than 1/3 of their current level had the US not invaded Iraq.
We’ve noted before that Iraqi reserves somehow gets overlooked, which is odd. Iraq’s production has fallen further than Saudi Arabia’s has, but that fact is not often mentioned in polite company…
Note that Salameh does not consider the possibility that reserves may be higher than previously thought; he simply goes back to status quo ante.
From the Sydney Morning Herald (hat tip John Robb):
Mamdouh Salameh believes the oil price would now be no more than $US40 a barrel, less than a third of the current price, if not for the Iraq war…
Salameh told a British parliamentary committee last month that Iraq had offered the US a deal, three years before the war, that would have opened 10 new giant oil fields on "generous" terms, in return for lifting sanctions. "This would certainly have prevented the steep rise of the oil price," he said. ‘But the US had a different idea. It planned to occupy Iraq and annex its oil.’"
