Remember Unocal? That's the company that had that pipeline deal in Afghanistan that meant the US first supporting the Taliban in 1995 (as a force of political stability) and now supporting Hamid Karzai, a onetime unocal consultant. Unocal was also involved with the Baku-Tbilsi-Ceyhan pipeline deal. Initially Chevron made a $16.5 billion dollar bid for the company in April and was expected to buy it.
Now, China has made a larger bid for Unocal, and the US, dependent on China to buy US treasury bonds, is in a pickle. Should Unocal become a Chinese-owned company, that would bring the US business's investment share in the BTC pipeline down from 12% or so to about 2.5% - at least if I understand what I read correctly. If you read this article in "Petroleum News" you can find out even more indepth info on the possible effect or non-effect of the sale. As the articles will tell you, the US government can block the bid by declaring it to be bad for state security. I look forward to reading Michael Klare's comments on this latest development, and the US reaction to it, which begin to make resource wars - even between superpowers sound increasingly immiment and scary.
On the production end, go to USLAW's page to read about the oil employees union portion of the US tour of Iraqi labor activists.
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