La catastrophique manne pétrolière de l’Irak

L’un des grands buts supposés de l’attaque de l’Irak par l’administration GW Bush était la manne pétrolière de l’Irak. Wolfowitz, alors n°2 du Pentagone et depuis reconverti à la tête de la Banque Mondiale pour saluer ses capacités de planificateur, avait prévu qu’en 2004, un an après l’invasion, la “manne” payerait les frais de reconstruction en Irak. Aujourd’hui, il n’est pas question de reconstruction mais de destruction. Quant à la “manne”, selon les dernières nouvelles aimablement communiquées par le Tucson Citizen du 11 octobre, elle est évidemment du niveau d’une catastrophe économique considérable, — pour des raisons diverses, dont le manque de planification et l'action des “insurgents”. Qu’on en juge :

« Iraq's oil wells, beset by equipment problems and saboteurs, are producing about 1.9 million barrels a day in net production, lower than the 2.6 million they were producing just before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, according to the London-based Centre for Global Energy Studies. Of the oil produced, about 500,000 barrels are consumed daily by Iraqis, while 1.4 million barrels are exported, CGES says.

» Despite the challenges, Iraq has benefited from rising oil prices, which have soared to more than $60 a barrel. Iraq's oil revenue jumped from $5 billion in 2003 — when the price of oil was about half of today's — to $17 billion in 2004, according to the U.S. State Department.

» Still, the production trend is troubling. The average daily production last year was 2.07 million barrels, according to CGES. This year through August, Iraq has produced an average of 1.86 million barrels, it said. “There's a lot of pessimism about oil production in Iraq,” says Michelle Billig, a political risk analyst in the oil sector for PIRA Energy Group.

» Production continues to slide despite a massive, U.S.-funded effort to stabilize and boost output, repair critical parts of Iraq's oil infrastructure and develop a long-term plan for the Iraqi oil industry. The U.S. has spent $420 million fixing the oil network and allocated $1.7 billion to the sector.

(...)

» The Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, a nonprofit group studying energy security, has counted more than 200 attacks on Iraqi gas or oil pipelines and refineries since June 2003. Attacks on pipelines cost the government about 200,000 barrels a day, U.S. oil officials say. »

Mis en ligne le 13 octobre 2005 à 14H35