U.S. pays Halliburton $2.65/gallon for gas

[MonstaThrilla]

Democratic Congressmen Make the Claim

[...]

As of Oct. 19, Halliburton had imported 61.3 million gallons of gasoline from Kuwait into Iraq, and the company was paid $162.5 million for an average price of $2.65 a gallon, Waxman and Dingell wrote.

"The $2.65 per gallon is grossly excessive," they said. "Experts we consulted stated that the total price for buying and transporting gasoline into Iraq should be less than $1.00 per gallon."

The U.S. government was then selling this gasoline inside Iraq for just four to 15 cents a gallon, subsidizing over 95 percent of the cost of gasoline consumed by Iraqis, they said.

"The U.S. government is paying nearly three times more for gasoline from Kuwait than it should, and then is reselling this gasoline at a huge loss inside Iraq," the lawmakers wrote.

Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall defended the company against what she said were "false statements" about its efforts in Iraq, adding that wartime work was expensive and Halliburton only recovered "a few cents on the dollar" for fuel costs.

[...]

Are Waxman and Dingell guilty of fuzzy math? Yes. Are they guilty of pure, partisan politics? Probably.

But does that make Halliburton's fleecing of the American taxpayer and war profiteering right? Absolutely not.

 

[Red Dawn]

Uhhh... Do tanks, Humvees and other Military Vehicles run on regular unleaded gas?

 

[chess9]

Red:

Good question, but shouldn't there be some economies of scale when you buy it by the tanker?

-Robert

 

[heartsurgeon]

Dingell and Waxman are waterboys for the radical left...

i would like to see who did their "analysis" on howmuch it should cost given the
situation on the ground, to purchase and transport fuel to iraq.

understand the language of the contract is important as well..

what about insurance costs? get a tanker, boat or pipe line blown up..who pays?
how much do you pay people to go to iraq and manage the flow of fuel?

it's easy to say it costs to much....but costs include a lot more than the cost of the fuel, and the cost to
physically move it...call it overhead if you want, but its a real cost, and determined by the contractual obligations
contained within...

investigate the contract and the payments, but lets withhold judgement until we actually have some facts we can
review for ourselves, instead of taking the word of Dingell and Waxman...they really have no credibility..they generally are sent out to
chum the poliical waters when the "big boys" in the democrat party don't want to....

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: chess9
Red:

Good question, but shouldn't there be some economies of scale when you buy it by the tanker?

-Robert

Maybe but even so it still might be a bargain.

 

[burnedout]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn
Uhhh... Do tanks, Humvees and other Military Vehicles run on regular unleaded gas?

No sir. Mostly Diesel.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: burnedout

Originally posted by: Red Dawn
Uhhh... Do tanks, Humvees and other Military Vehicles run on regular unleaded gas?

No sir. Mostly Diesel.

DOH!!!

 

[burnedout]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Originally posted by: burnedout

Originally posted by: Red Dawn
Uhhh... Do tanks, Humvees and other Military Vehicles run on regular unleaded gas?

No sir. Mostly Diesel.

DOH!!!

Anyway, looks like old Halliburton is getting a bit outta hand with the pricing. Wasn't the price $1.62/gal a month or so ago over there?

 

[chess9]

I'd guess $1.00 per gallon is probably Halliburton's cost based upon a preliminary look at prices on the net. Hard to say though because they have resources not available to most bulk purchasers. I wouldn't be surprised if it were significantly less than $1.00 per gallon. Also, I assume they would buy from the Saudis or Russia or BP, so their transportation costs would not be significant. That's a real money maker for them, I'm sure. But, this shouldn't be a big surprise to anyone and this is capitalism, right? The main offense here is Halliburton's sweetheart deal with Cheney, er, the U.S. government.

-Robert

 

[dquan97]

Originally posted by: burnedout

Originally posted by: Red Dawn
Uhhh... Do tanks, Humvees and other Military Vehicles run on regular unleaded gas?

No sir. Mostly Diesel.

Gotcha there...

 

[drewshin]

another thing i noticed is that although gas from kuwait is $2.65 a gallon, halliburton is only charging $1.22 a gallon for gas from turkey? i would think gas from turkey would be much more expensive because you've got a slightly longer distance and it's a more dangerous area to transport gas through.

maybe the kuwaitis are just better businessmen than the turks heh heh, but something definitely doesn't seem right.

 

[CaptnKirk]

Well, up until the Iraq War began the price for gas was a nickle a gallon,
but we made sure that those assets were mostly unscathed, even rushed in
military forces to secure them before Baghdad fell. Turned them right over to
Haliburton (Brown & Kellogg) for car-taking under a no-bid contract award.

What's happened to those assets and their production ?
Are these the ones that are so obsolete that will take millions of
dollars in contract awards to make them servicable again ?
Even thought they were running on Shock 'N Awe Eve ?
Or are they being held back for a future Proffit Margin - when the price is right ?

Looks to me as if Haliburton is just harvesting and double dipping proffit everywhere.
(Want to bet that the Bush Familly Dynasty has a ton invested {secetrely] in Halibutron & Uncle Dick?)

If it's Oil and Texas - the Bushes are deep in it - end of discussion.

 

[rjain]

you can't put crude oil into engines.

 

[CaptnKirk]

Who said you would ?
Iraqi Refineries were producing end product Gasoline for sale as 5 cents per gallon.

 

[DrPizza]

Hey, don't forget that the price we see at the gas stations for a gallon of gas includes a heckuva lot of tax... I don't think the government would have to pay Halliburton tax on the gas. So, that's probably about triple the normal wholesale price.

 

[Lucky]

Normal wholesale prices don't reflect the cost of finding and paying people to drive huge mobile bombs through a country where attacks on US interests have risen to over 30 per day.

 

[glugglug]

How much of gas prices is tax? Most of it no?
When selling directly to the gov't, there is no tax.

I'd be surprised if the cost to Haliburton is over $0.50/gallon.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: Lucky
Normal wholesale prices don't reflect the cost of finding and paying people to drive huge mobile bombs through a country where attacks on US interests have risen to over 30 per day.

LOL. you couldn't pay me enough to do that!

 

[dexvx]

According to the article, this is regular gasoline. And according to the same article:

The U.S. government is paying Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites)'s former firm Halliburton (NYSE:HAL - news) "enormous sums" -- $2.65 a gallon -- for gasoline imported into Iraq (news - web sites) from Kuwait, two lawmakers charged on Wednesday.

The Iraqi oil company SOMO is paying only 97 cents a gallon to import gasoline from Kuwait to Iraq...

Originally posted by: Lucky
Normal wholesale prices don't reflect the cost of finding and paying people to drive huge mobile bombs through a country where attacks on US interests have risen to over 30 per day.

I'm sure the 1000's of ex-Iraqi soldiers would love a job right now.

 

[SuperTool]

I guess Halliburton is more important than US taxpayers or soldiers.
This war is an excuse to funnel taxpayer money to Bush's campaign donors. Remember, Bush couldn't make a single business work without taxpayer money flowing into it. So why would his buddies be any different?

 

[Shelly21]

I heard on NPR a similar story like this. My take is that Halliburton should be able to charge anything they want because this is a business. And the U.S. government have a contract with Halliburton to provide this service.

If The Iraqi oil company SOMO is paying only 97 cents a gallon, that doesn't change anything.

U.S government is being fleeced daily regardless of what company it is.

 

[CaptnKirk]

Once again my question - Iraq was refining their own oil into Gasoline, and it was 5 Cents a gallon.

We made the effort to save those resources, and secure them.

Where is that product going for who's proffit.

 

[Corn]

Once again my question - Iraq was refining their own oil into Gasoline, and it was 5 Cents a gallon.

We made the effort to save those resources, and secure them.

Where is that product going for who's proffit.

Do you have any evidence there are operating refineries in Iraq producing product in quantities? I may be wrong, but I believe we made efforts to save oil production facilities, not refineries. Crude does the enemy no good if it don't work in their vehicles, and somehow I doubt we handled with kid gloves the Iraqi's ability to keep their vehicle's gas tanks topped off...........

 

[roboninja]

Originally posted by: SuperTool
I guess Halliburton is more important than US taxpayers or soldiers.
This war is an excuse to funnel taxpayer money to Bush's campaign donors. Remember, Bush couldn't make a single business work without taxpayer money flowing into it. So why would his buddies be any different?

Exactly, and that is all it was ever about. You think Bush cares about Iraqi's suffering? Please. Saw a good docu on CBC(Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canada's BBC, essentially) last night. It went into great detail on how the Bush's have been buddies with the Bin Laden family and the Saudi ruling party for over 25 years, and have made several financial deals together. Why do you think members of these families got a free pass out of the country on Sept 11, without even as much as being questioned? It all comes down to the oil, and that equals money for the Bush/Cheney team.

 

[CaptnKirk]

God, Why do people who don't know diddly always want PROOF ?

Link to PROOF

In my opinion the phrase 'I Don't think' is really 'I Don't know', and
they haven't kept themselves well enough informed on the subject.