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15 Feb ’12
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this could be bad
Iraq's biggest oil refinery shut down, foreign staff evacuated
(Reuters) - Iraq's biggest oil refinery, Baiji, has been shut down and its foreign staff evacuated, refinery officials said on Tuesday, adding that local staff remain in place and the military is still in control of the facility.
Militants from al Qaeda splinter group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) seized Iraq's second-biggest city of Mosul last week and other Sunni armed groups have advanced into the town of Baiji and surrounded its refinery.
The refinery shut down overnight, the sources said.
Baiji is one of three oil refineries in Iraq and only processes oil from the north. The other two are located in Baghdad and the south and are firmly under government control and operational.
“Due to the recent attacks of militants by mortars, the refinery administration decided to evacuate foreign workers for their safety and also to completely shut down production units to avoid extensive damage that could result," a chief engineer at the refinery said on condition of anonymity.
He said that there is sufficient gas oil, gasoline and kerosene to supply more than a month of domestic demand.
http://in.reuters.co.....2120140617
Oil thirst rising as Iraq unrest boosts prices
As Iraq's mounting unrest pushes crude oil prices to their highest levels this year, a report Friday predicts that global oil demand will increase, but Iraq's supplies may not be at "immediate" risk.
"Concerning as the latest events in Iraq may be, they might not, for now, if the conflict does not spread further, put additional Iraqi oil supplies immediately at risk," the Paris-based International Energy Agency said in its monthly oil market report.
The IEA, which does autonomous energy research and forecasting for 29 member countries, noted that most of Iraq's fighting has occurred in its northern areas, where oil production has largely stalled since March. Most of Iraq's production — which recently hit a 30-year-high — has occurred in the south, and its exports are coming from terminals near Basra.
"While Iraq's production potential is huge, so are the political hurdles it is facing," the IEA says, noting the significant gains that Sunni insurgents have made in the country's north since launching a military campaign earlier this month. The Islamic militants, after taking control of the northern cities of Mosul and Tikrit, have said they will march on Baghdad.
The turmoil in Iraq pushed up U.S. and world oil prices about 4% this week. The U.S. benchmark crude oil, West Texas Intermediate, closed at $106.91 a barrel, up 38 cents on Friday. Brent, the international benchmark, rose 31 cents to $113.41.
The IEA has forecast that Iraq, which has the world's fifth-largest proven oil reserves, would account for 60% of production growth from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries for the rest of this decade. Iraq, now producing about 3.3 million barrels a day, has become OPEC's second-largest producer, after Saudi Arabia.
Even if the fighting stays in Iraq's north, the IEA sees an impact. It says the unrest makes the reopening of a key pipeline from Kirkuk in Iraq to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan in Turkey "look even more elusive." It has been out of use since March because of sabotage.
This uncertainty comes as the IEA expects global oil demand, which affects both oil and gasoline prices, will rise from 91.4 million barrels per day in 2014's first quarter to 94 million during its last three months.
"The question is, who is going to fill the gap? Saudi Arabia? That's what the market is looking at,'' says John Kingston, global news director for industry tracker Platts Energy.
Oil and gas infrastructure in the Iraq's north "will be vulnerable to repeated attack, and the risk of disruptions to domestic product supply is high," Raad Alkadiri, a senior research director at IHS Energy, a consulting firm, said in a statement. Still, he doubts southern production and exports will be "directly affected."
By itself, Iraq's turmoil may have limited impact, but coinciding with Russia's annexation of Crimea and Libya's instability, it "points to a systemic and seismic shift geopolitically," Edward Morse, head of commodities research at Citigroup, wrote in a report Friday. He said the rise of a wider Islamic banner, bringing Iraq and Syria closer together, could "pose physical challenges to the maintenance of borders laid down nearly a century ago."
Higher oil prices could set the stage for a spike in gasoline prices, already on the rise. While gasoline averaged $3.58 a gallon between Memorial Day and Labor Day last year, retail prices have averaged about $3.65 for the past month.
Oil price increases are likely to drive the price of regular unleaded gasoline up 5 to 10 cents per gallon in the coming days and keep summer prices elevated, says Tom Kloza, senior energy analyst at Gasbuddy.com.
15 Feb ’12
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Martenson comments on it
4 Mar ’12
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1. the "forces" that are causing all this trouble are (and have been) backed by the US.
2. There are only about 500 of these "forces" inside Iraq.
3. It would take 1-2 days to kill these "forces" off.
4. US wont do it as they are on the payroll.
5. Oil companies look for every opportunity to raise the prices.
19 Feb ’12
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gw99 said
1. the "forces" that are causing all this trouble are (and have been) backed by the US.2. There are only about 500 of these "forces" inside Iraq.
3. It would take 1-2 days to kill these "forces" off.
4. US wont do it as they are on the payroll.
5. Oil companies look for every opportunity to raise the prices.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but how can 500 people seize a city, let alone multiple cities???
4 Mar ’12
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the civilian population has been disarmed. They have no weapons. 500-1000 terrorists armed by Saudi Arabia and trained by US can take the entire country.
These are the same forces that fought in Libya and Syria.
15 Feb ’12
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I read that it started as 500 but they have been growing in numbers as they make their way across the country, basically join us or die
looks like they have the oil refinery
Iraq's government insisted Thursday that security forces were still in control of the country's largest oil refinery, despite claims that Al Qaeda-aligned Sunni Muslim insurgents had raised their flag over the facility.
A witness who drove past the Beiji refinery told the Associated Press that militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) had hung black banners on the refinery's watch towers and were manning checkpoints around the building. He said a huge fire in one of its tankers was raging at the time.
The witness spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared reprisals.
The security official in Baghdad said the government force protecting the refinery was still inside Thursday and that they were in regular contact with officials in Baghdad. He said helicopter gunships were flying over the facility to stop any advance by ISIS militants inside the refinery.
He also said the militants took over a building just outside the refinery and were using it to fire at government forces.
The official also spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists.
The army officer in charge of protecting the refinery, Col. Ali al-Qureishi, told state-run Iraqiya television by telephone that the facility remained under his control. He said nearly 100 militants had been killed as his forces repelled wave after wave of attacks since Tuesday. The country's chief military spokesman, Lt. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, echoed al-Qureishi's assertion in comments made at a news conference Thursday.
The Beiji refinery accounts for a little more than a quarter of the country's entire refining capacity -- all of which goes toward domestic consumption for things like gasoline, cooking oil and fuel for power stations.
Gasoline produced at the refinery largely goes to northern Iraq and its closure has caused a shortage in the region.
The assault on the refinery also has affected global gasoline prices, as the U.S. national average price reached $3.67 per gallon, the highest price for this time of year since 2008, the year gasoline hit its all-time high in America. The price of benchmark crude for July delivery rose 57 cents Thursday to $106.54 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The campaign by the ISIS militants has raised the specter of the sectarian warfare that nearly tore the country apart in 2006 and 2007, with the popular mobilization to fight the insurgents taking an increasingly sectarian slant, particularly after Iraq's top Shiite cleric made a call to arms on Friday.
The Islamic State has vowed to march to Baghdad and the Shiite holy cities of Karbala and Najaf, home to some of the sect's most revered shrines, in the worst threat to Iraq's stability since U.S. troops left in late 2011. The militants also have tried to capture Samarra, a city north of Baghdad and home to another major Shiite shrine.
In an incident that harkens back to the dark days of Iraq's sectarian bloodletting of 2006 and 2007, the bullet-riddled bodies of four men, presumably Sunnis, were discovered in the Shiite Baghdad district of Abu Dashir on Thursday, police and morgue officials said. The bodies were handcuffed and had gunshot wounds to the head and chest.
Also in Baghdad, a roadside bomb hit a police patrol on a highway in the east of the city, killing two police officers and wounding two, police and hospital officials said. Earlier Thursday, a car bomb exploded inside a parking lot in Baghdad's southeastern Shiite neighborhood of New Baghdad, killing three people and wounding seven, the officials said.
All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.
The U.S. has pushed Iraq to present its people a clear coalition to fight the militants, with Vice President Joe Biden offering praise Wednesday for Iraq's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders as a means to tamper the sectarian anger roiling the country. It's unclear whether that will work, as Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shiite-led government has faced widespread dissatisfaction from the nation's sizable Sunni and Kurdish minorities.
Al-Maliki, a Shiite, has rejected charges of bias and instead said the crisis has led Iraqis to rediscover "national unity."
"I tell all the brothers there have been negative practices by members of the military, civilians and militiamen, but that is not what we should be discussing," al-Maliki said Wednesday. "Our effort should not be focused here and leave the larger objective of defeating" the militants.
Still, al-Maliki's outreach remain largely rhetoric, with no concrete action to bridge differences with Sunnis and Kurds, who have been at loggerheads with the prime minister over their right to independently export oil from their self-rule region in the north and over territorial claims.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Wednesday that his country had formally asked the U.S. to launch airstrikes against positions of the Islamic State.
http://www.foxnews.c.....-soldiers/
wonder how the US is going to respond
Iraq has formally called on the US to launch air strikes against jihadist militants who have seized several key cities over the past week.
"We have a request from the Iraqi government for air power," confirmed top US military commander Gen Martin Dempsey in front of US senators.
Earlier the Sunni insurgents launched an attack on Iraq's biggest oil refinery at Baiji north of Baghdad.
Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki earlier urged Iraqis to unite against the militants.
Government forces are battling to push back ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) and its Sunni Muslim allies in Diyala and Salahuddin provinces, after the militants overran the second city, Mosul, last week.
US President Barack Obama met senior Congress members on Wednesday to discuss the Iraq crisis. The White House said Mr Obama had "reviewed our efforts to strengthen the capacity of Iraq's security forces to confront the threat from ISIL [ISIS], including options for increased security assistance".
Ahead of the briefing Senate leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, said he did not "support in any way" getting American troops involved in the Iraqi "civil war".
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-27905849
But Gen Dempsey told a Senate panel that it was in America's "national interest to counter [ISIS] wherever we find them".
11 Mar ’12
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I'm not at all surprised by any of this.
Be RADICAL Grow Food
15 Feb ’12
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well this could be bad
25,000 Indians 'ready to fight in Iraq to defend Shia holy sites'
The rift between Shia and Sunni Muslims dates back to the 7th Century succession battle between the Prophet Mohammad’s grandson Imam Hussein and members of Umayyad clan who sought to turn the Caliphate into a dynasty.
The resulting war became a rout of Hussein’s followers and their siege at Karbala. They were starved, many died from thirst and the survivors were massacred. Their ‘martyrdom’ is marked every winter when Shias beat their chests and flay themselves with blades to repent their failure to come to Hussein’s aid.
India’s Shias said they would not stand by while Karbala is attacked again. Their recruits include bankers, students, doctors and engineers and their leaders have written to the Indian government to stress Isis’ support for terrorist attacks in India too.
“We have 25,000 volunteers who have filled in the forms and given their passports and are ready to go any moment. Another hundred thousand have got in touch with us and have pledged their support. We are looking at a million volunteers to form a human chain around the holy shrines of Karbala and Najaf, in case the Isis attacks. We will do everything to stop the advance of the enemies”, said Syed Bilal, spokesman of Anjuman-e-Haideri which protects Delhi’s own ‘Karbala’ shrine.
“The volunteers are educated young men from different backgrounds. We do not plan to train them in arms. We will go there to fight them bare handed”, he added.
Shabbir Hussian, a Shia masters student in Delhi, said he was ready to join the battle immediately. “We are ready to die and kill for our holy shrines. We won’t allow the desecration of our religious places”, he said
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