Ownership, Depletion and Control: National Oil Companies, Peak Oil, and the US Empire (original) (raw)
Part I of this paper examines the historic shift in control of the world’s oil reserves since the rise of the National Oil Companies in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Part II will look at the evidence which suggests that we are already standing at the threshold of the global peak in conventional oil production. The third and final part of this paper will examine the approach which the US empire has taken to address this conjuncture – both through indirect attempts to open NOCs to the world market, and to forcefully reconfigure the international energy order through the invasion and occupation of Iraq. I will argue that this latter course of action was undertaken with the double aim of controlling the world flow of oil and increasing its production – a task that could only be achieved by breaking the monopoly that state oil companies hold on the world’s reserves and embarking on a program of maximum extraction with Western transnational oil corporations playing a dominant, but not exclusive role. The results of the violent restructuring of the Iraqi economy are still ongoing, and it is entirely possible that Iraqi resistance to American dominance will subvert a neoliberal solution to the redevelopment of Iraq’s shattered oil infrastructure—resulting instead in the building of neo-mercantilist relations with the 4 NOCs of energy-hungry industrializing countries such as India and China. How the global oil industry is restructured – whether tendencies to national control and bilateral agreements are intensified, or whether the neoliberal tendencies towards the internationalization of the industry as pushed for by the US state are victorious – will have wide-ranging ramifications on the shape of class struggle and capitalist accumulation in the 21st century.
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.