Folha de São Paulo - Op-ed section - page A2  

Iraq sits on an estimated 115 billion barrels of oil. These resources make Iraq's petroleum reserves the world's third largest. This week each of those barrels was valued at over US$140 on the international market. In addition, Iraq's natural gas reserves are estimated to be 112 trillion cubic feet.

Mesopotamia has a very ancient history. But Modern Iraq is all about oil. Its territorial boundaries, delineated in the 1920s after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, were traced out by the great western oil companies negotiating for their shares in its petroleum resources.

In fact, it was a pencil in the hands of a remarkable Armenian entrepreneur and fixer. Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian, that in 1928 drew the famous "Red line" on the map of the Middle East that created a geographical division the major western oil companies and their governments could agree on.

In 1929 the old Turkish Petroleum Company was renamed the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC). Until the nationalization of the IPC by Saddam Hussein in the early 1970s, the Gulbenkian brokered deal was sustained. There were four "major" partners: British Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell, Compagnie Francaise des Petroles, and the American companies and Esso and Mobile. Each of these companies held a 23.75% stake in IPC. Gulbenkian retained 5% as the only "minor". It was because of this percentage in IPC that Gulbenkian, who became immensely rich as a consequence, was known as "Mr. Five Per Cent".

This week four major western oil companies - Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP - are reported to be close to signing non bid contracts with the Iraqi government to develop Iraqi oil resources. The New York Times says that a U.S. State Department team helped draft these agreements.

When, after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, looters attacked and stripped the Iraqi national museum and national library, depositories of the most precious artifacts of the world's most ancient civilizations, US troops stood aside. Their only authorized deployment had been to protect the Iraqi Oil ministry, the ministry that this week is allocating no bid contracts to the same multinational petroleum companies who ran Iraq Petroleum Company between 1928 and 1972. The only thing missing is Mr Gulbenkian's 5%.

KENNETH MAXWELL is a weekly op-ed columnist (every Thursday) for Folha de São Paulo, Brazil's leading newspaper