We only ever hear one side of the Big oil story from the MSM. Blog friend Pundita has an interesting post dealing with another side of the equation.
The production and export of petroleum in Chad are overseen by the Exxon Mobil-led consortium. Under the mechanism, Exxon Mobil ... is responsible for 40 percent of the country's production, while Chevron has 25 percent and [Malaysia's] Petronas has 30 percent.
In essence, Chad's president is making a money grab by threatening to throw Chevron and Exxon out of their fields and his country. And he is dancing with the Chinese to prove he has somewhere friendly to go. They'd like nothing better than the oil flow and another notch in their gun against American interests abroad. Not to mention their intentions to drill right off of our coast.
My take - the World Bank will likely cave, raising the amount of money Chad can put into their general Fund from 15% of proceeds, to 30%. The catch there was that the initial restrictions were established precisely because Chad's government was not caring for its people.
So, Big Oil will pony up, the World Bank will back off and more people in Africa will continue to be exploited, not by American industry, but by their own government; yet, in the end, when the fiasco blows up in violence, communism, or some other radical ideology, America will be to blame. And that rationale will be trumpeted by our own Left when the time comes because they won't even bother looking at the problem realistically now. Check out Pundita's post.
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