Richmond’s Planning Commission may have decided to take three weeks to think about Chevron’s proposal to upgrade its refinery capacity. But over in Iraq, the country’s Oil Ministry has apparently decided it’s spent far too much time thinking about oil, and it’s time to make some deals. That’s why they’ve started negotiating some two-year, short-term contracts with Chevron to produce and export oil from existing fields, thereby bypassing the legal requirement that long-term contracts be subject to approval from the Iraqi parliament. Critics argue that any negotiations during the American occupation are inherently coercive; we don’t know nothin’ ’bout birthin’ no oil fields, so we’ll reserve comment.
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