THE company once headed by US Vice-President Dick Cheney is set to be a big corporate winner in the event of a war with Iraq that ended in US victory.
Houston-based oil services company Halliburton, which he led between 1995 and 2000, has already received one contract to put out fires in Iraq’s oilfields and assess damage in the event that military conflict results in burning production facilities.
Halliburton is also among a handful of big US firms invited to bid for a post-war rebuilding contract that could be worth almost $1bn (£624m).
America’s Defence Department has been preparing to rebuild Iraq, even though it has yet to declare war. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, five US-based firms, including Halliburton, have been contacted to submit bids to be part of a speedy reconstruction of Iraq’s electrical system, roads and hospitals in a project valued at $900m.
The amount of the initial project is more than twice what the US is spending to reconstruct war-torn Afghanistan.
Halliburton, which reported a net loss of $129m in the fourth quarter, has a history of government contracts that predates this Administration by decades but the company’s close ties to the White House and its emergence as a possible leading beneficiary of a conflict have outraged anti-war groups.
Experts say even if Iraq’s oilfields-emerge unscathed, they will need upgrading to reach peak performance after years of global sanctions, including UN bans on repair equipment.
Experts estimate Iraq’s existing fields could pump up to 12m barrels a day, a fivefold increase over current output and a potential gold mine for any multinational oil company involved in reconstruction.
The White House insists oil is not a factor involved in decision making about Iraq, which officialssay is solely based on the nation’s weapons of mass destruction, but anti-war groups have seized on the business opportunities embedded in Iraq as influencing US strategy in the region.
This is a government marinated in oil,
consumer advocate and
former Presidential candidate Ralph Nadar said recently.
Halliburton is also active in oil-rich parts of Africa, including Nigeria, where it recently lost a radioactive device used in oil detection.
According to reports, the company and International Atomic Energy Agency officials have been searching for the device, which contains a small amount of radioactive material, for several weeks but do not know how it was stolen in the heart of West Africa’s oil-producing region.
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