Japan Inks Oil Deals With Iran

Elaine Meinel Supkis

Unlike the USA, our 'allies' always look at their own bottom lines before they do anything. Japan makes itself the number one entity, for example. This is why they give lip service to the Israeli/American hysteria about Iran getting nukes and then, in the teeth of the USA yelling for a massive boycott of Iran, they happily sign a joint oil agreement with the wily Persian cat that hisses in our general direction. With humor, of course.

The Japanese don't care if Israel is scared of Iran, they just want that oil at a good price.

BBC: Iran and Japanese firm Inpex say they are close to finalising a joint project to develop a big new Iranian oil field.

Both sides say they are less than two weeks away from final agreement over the Azadegan field, which is one of the world's largest untapped oil reserves.

Any deal will no doubt raise eyebrows in the US which wants sanctions against Iran due to Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

Eyebrows aren't merely being raised due to Koizumi's actions, they have shot right off the faces of all those nasty neo cons. They will be screaming at the Japanese how America, land of a million nukes, is terrified of a tiny pussy cat. Why should we care what Iran does? All the oil in the Middle East is for sale to the highest bidder. We have made certain this trade is done in increasingly worthless dollars so we should be happy, no?

Aside from the shameful lack of poise and projection of strength, our piddling pools of urine every time the Persian cat decides to hiss at us or Israel makes us look stupid. I mean, come on now! America is supposedly leading all of NATO which is Europe as well as the entire United Nations and here we are, cowering in fear every time Iran looks at us! This tragic loss of power can't be regained by beating up Iran. We did this to Iraq, lying about how terrifying Saddam was and then leaping upon him the minute the UN certified he was without any weapons of mass destruction like the cluster bombs we gave Israel which the IDF dropped into Lebanon right after the ceasefire was announced it would terminate fighting in three days.

Everyone wants the oil and they can plainly see, our method of writing oil contracts by invading a country and then fighting tooth and nail year after year, bleeding billions of dollars a month, is a fool's errand. Even the craven, timid Europeans have finally figured this out and they have simply tried to distract America by having false 'negotiations' with Iran which is OK with the Iranians who seem to be much smarter than anyone working for the USA State Department these days.

And here is Mr. Überdummkopf himself.

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer 50 minutes ago
PINEY POINT, Md. - President Bush said Monday the economy is growing steadily and jobs are plentiful, but America must work harder to break its dependency on foreign oil. Making a Labor Day appearance at Maryland's Paul Hall Center for Training and Education, which offers vocational training to Seafarer's International Union members, Bush said "dependence on foreign oil jeopardizes our ability to grow."

"Problem is, we get oil from some parts of the world and they simply don't like us," he said. "The more dependent we are on that type of energy, the less likely it will be that we are able to compete and so people can have good paying jobs."

They don't like us? How about they hate our guts because we are agents of Israel? Under Bush, our policies became so totally lopsided, it sank into a Sea of Despond. Of course, electing a Democrat won't right this sinking ship since they, too, will make the same mistakes or face fearful consequences.

Thanks to the internet, talking about this mess is possible but not at any mainstream sites, of course. But light is leaking in around the gaskets sealing us off from world opinion. Someday we will have an honest discussion about all this.

As far as foreign oil is concerned: we can't afford to buy it from ANYONE! This is due to the flood of red ink within our government, our populace and our world trade balance. The American dream is running aground due to us throwing dollars at everyone and hoping no one will notice it isn't backed by anything solid anymore.

But they do notice which is why European energy costs went up a fraction of our own costs. And the yuan continues to rise against the dollar but more onimously, the Chinese FOREX funds are past a trillion dollars and we can't stop it from going to two trillion dollars in only three years or less! So we have to strangle our oil appetites.

China, like Japan, likes oil and is slowly driving us out of places we thought we 'owned'.

BEIJING, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), China's largest oil producer, has entered into two cooperative contracts with Uzbekistan, in central Asia.

The company's in-house journal has announced the ratification of a production-sharing agreement on Wednesday with Uzbekistan's Uzbekneftegaz, Russia's Lukoil, Malaysia's Petronas and South Korea's National Oil Corporation to explore and develop prospective natural gas deposits in the Aral Sea.

The contract was signed after CNPC received exploration permission in five onshore blocks in Uzbekistan nearly ten days ago.

The Chinese dragon tightens its grip on more subterranean riches. Not one bomb was dropped, not one peasant was hunted down by helicopters and killed, no women cooking dinner next to their tents were blown up. There is no hatred. No reason for war.

This won't stop peasant uprisings but the Chinese consider that to be the ruling elite's headache. Whoever takes over if the government falls will get red carpet visits in Beijing. As long as the contracts hold up, the Chinese see no point in fighting anyone.

And here is a warning from our dear hedge fund dudes.

The people manipulating the NYMEX don't care about the price of oil at all... They care about the price of Exxon, Conoco, Sunoco, RIG, HAL and other sector stocks that have Trillions of dollars of market caps. A 1% move in the oil sector is a $20Bn profit or loss in sector market cap.

Exxon, for example trades about 20M shares a day for $67 each, that's $1.3Bn a day of Exxon stock alone. Barclays Global has 241M shares of Exxon worth $13Bn and 83M shares of COP worth $5Bn and 82M shares of CVX and 14M shares of Suncor... Let's say they have $100Bn tied up in oil...

Now not Barclays, because I'm sure they are super honest and do everything by the book, but let's say that some other investment house, hedge fund or whoever the new Enron is, has $100Bn tied up in oil stocks. Let's say those stocks drop suddenly 10%, just like the OIH did between May 11th and May 22nd. It's hard to unload 83M shares of COP because it only trades 8M shares on an average day. This is BIG TROUBLE!

*snip*

There are 330 Energy dedicated hedge funds in addition to thousands of mutual funds, index funds, private money managers, arab sheikh, Chinese government officials (remember the zinc scandal) and other private investors who have the means, the motive and the opportunity to rig the system with Billions of dollars on the line and virtually no chance of being caught.

To keep the price of futures up, they need hot talk about war! War! More war! So don't be surprised if Bush and Cheney talk about starting more wars right in the heart of Oilpumpingstan. There is no other way. Of course, everyone will allow these clowns to drop the price at the pump right before the election to make all the easily duped happy, all those NASCAR dads will be relieved and might even believe lies about how oil will be very cheap very soon.

But that is for chumps. There is no way these guys will bite the bullet and take a hit in their wallets. After all, these are the same people who have already bought the services of the political elites and they always expect pay day. Which means, fleecing American sheeple.

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Comments

[panasianbiz.com]

We need to recognize that not only are we in the U.S. competing against these other countries in the global marketplace, but they can indeed undermine us or push us right out of the picture if we don't smarten up pretty soon and see what is really happening!

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

Everyone is trying to fool everyone else. Alas, our leader is a very big fool so as they say, some people can be fooled all the time.