Page 8 - MEOG Week 28

MEOG PolICy MEOG
Lebanon rules out importing fuel from Iran
lebanon
LeBANON says it has no intention of import- ing fuel from Iran, its energy minister, Raymond Ghajar, said on July 9, a er the Tehran-backed Hezbollah group said it was in talks with the Leb- anese government about the proposal.
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on July 7 that “a calm discussion” was under- way with the government on Lebanon buying re ned products from Iran in Lebanese pounds. is would ease pressure on Beirut’s hard cur- rent reserves, which are currently running short.
Lebanon is su ering a nancial crisis, with its currency having shed around 80% of its value since October.
“ ere is no plan to negotiate with Iran at present about importing fuel, and the current discussion is with Iraq,” Ghajar said, referring to negotiations with Baghdad over fuel imports.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on July 8 that taking fuels from Iran would be unacceptable.
“It would be sanctioned product for sure,
and we’ll do everything we can to make sure that Iran cannot continue to sell crude oil anywhere, including to Hezbollah in the region,” he said.
Ghajar also warned earlier this week that shortages of diesel were growing acute, partly because of people stockpiling. is could lead to power cuts because diesel- red electricity sta- tions will have to shut down.
Shortages have been exacerbated by the smuggling of subsidised supplies across the bor- der into Syria.
Lebanese economy Minister Raoul Nehme has criticised authorities for creating a “cartel” by selling fuel to only one company. He has called for the market to be opened up to more suppliers.
Ghajar responded that doing this would lead to “chaos.”
“We cannot open the market because the process will turn into chaos ... so we must gather intelligence to know where this fuel went,” he said.™
ProJeCts & ComPanIes
Unaoil managers convicted for Iraq graft
Iraq
A court in the UK has convicted two former managers of Monaco-based consultancy Unaoil of bribing o cials in Iraq to win oil deals in the early 2000s.
A jury found British-Lebanese Ziad Akle, the company’s former Iraq manager, and Stephen Whiteley, a British former manager for Iraq, Kazakhstan and Angola, guilty following 19 days of deliberations.
However, the jury did not reach a verdict in the case against Paul Bond, who was once the Middle east sales manager for SBM O shore. e UK’s Serious Fraud O ce (SFO) said that it would apply for a retrial.
In 2016, Fairfax Media exposed Unaoil’s industrial-scale corruption. examination of tens of thousands of emails suggests that the consultancy channelled huge bribes to govern- ment o cials on behalf of its clients to help win billions of dollars worth of government contracts across a number of hydrocarbons-producing countries, including Iraq, Iran and Libya.
Looking particularly at Iraq, the accusations are that the company and its country manager, Basil Al Jarah, arranged enormous bribes for clients, including Rolls-Royce, Petrofac, Clyde
Pumps, Weatherford, Cameron/Natco, FMC Technologies, Saipem, SBM Offshore, MAN Turbo, Rosetti Marino, ABB, e Shaw Group, Core Labs, Leighton O shore, Weir and Hyun- dai, plus some major IOCs.
Amongst the Iraqi public o cials allegedly implicated include Hussain al-Shahristani, Abdul Kareem al-Luaibi (another former Petro- leum Minister), Kifah Numan (director-gen- eral of the South Oil Co., SOC), and Dhia Ja ar (another director-general of SOC and Deputy Petroleum Minister).
Some of the key projects in which bribery allegedly played a major part include the devel- opment of some of Iraq’s biggest oil elds, includ- ing Zubair and Gharraf.
At the time, the revelations that relatively moderate gures in Iraq’s current political struc- ture – most notably, former Petroleum Minister and current Minister for education, Hussain al-Shahristani, who was also a leader in Iraq’s ruling National Alliance coalition – have long been involved in extensive corrupt practices served to undermine Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s credibility in portraying himself as an anti-corruption gure.™
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 28 15•July•2020