The Pentagon said it is tapping a subsidiary of Halliburton Co., Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, to oversee efforts to control oil-well fires, should Saddam Hussein torch Iraq's oil fields in the event of a U.S. attack.
The Pentagon said it intends to use a plan developed by Kellogg Brown & Root Inc., a unit of Houston-based Halliburton, if Mr. Hussein sabotages his fields. The plan also addresses assessing damage to oil facilities, the Pentagon said.
Mr. Cheney served as chief executive of Halliburton until 2000, when he stepped down to become the running mate of President Bush.
The development positions Kellogg Brown & Root as a leading candidate to win the role of top contractor in any petroleum-field rehabilitation effort in Iraq. The job could involve coordinating dozens of smaller specialty contractors that do everything from helping clear mines and build roads to putting out fires and repairing damaged wells.
Wendy Hall, a spokeswoman for Halliburton, said the announcement comes as no surprise, since Kellogg Brown & Root has a long history of doing work for the government. "This business has been doing government contracting since the 1940s," she said.
Iraq has oil reserves second only to those of Saudi Arabia, and oil-services firms such as Halliburton and Schlumberger Ltd., New York, are seen as favorites for what industry analysts say could be as much as $1.5 billion in contracts to jump-start Iraq's petroleum sector following a war.
A number of oil-field fire-fighting firms have been gearing up for months for the possibility of Iraqi fires. But some have complained that -- unlike 12 years ago in Kuwait -- they haven't been given many details to prepare for a possible deployment.
For instance, companies haven't had any contact with local experts who know the fields. The Pentagon, meanwhile, has been slow to share its own plans for securing the fields and any intelligence that may shed more light on what military planners believe Mr. Hussein has in store for the fields.
Companies like Houston-based Boots & Coots International Well Control Inc.; Cudd Well Control, a division of RPC Inc., Atlanta; and Wild Well Control, a unit of Superior Energy Services Inc., of Harvey, La., helped extinguish nearly 700 burning wells in Kuwait in 1991, after a retreating Iraqi army set the fields on fire.
About 60 firefighters and engineers from Cudd are ready to deploy to the region on short notice, said Ronnie Roles, president of operations. "We're sitting on dead ready," he said. But the company hasn't been in contact with the Department of Defense about contingencies since a preliminary meeting late last year, Cudd officials said. They also haven't heard yet from Kellogg Brown.
The Pentagon's statement didn't specify whether it had actually awarded a contract to Kellogg Brown, and a Pentagon spokesman said he had no further information.
Pentagon officials have said for some time that they believe Mr. Hussein will attempt to sabotage the fields to slow any U.S.-led invasion. The Pentagon's statement Thursday provided some detail, saying "reliable reports" have indicated sabotage has been planned and already may have begun. The Pentagon said intelligence suggested that Iraqi forces had received 24 rail cars of explosives, which the regime might use to detonate wells. |
