'HANDS OFF IRAQI OIL' PROTEST OUTSIDE SHELL'S AGM (20 MAY)

Shell AGM protest

Tuesday 20 May 2008
9am-11am
Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS

Join us in resisting Shell's occupation-propelled oil grab in Iraq.

* Crash pad accommodation on Monday 19th following the Naomi Klein fundraiser is available - contact 0845 458 2564 or email  handsoffiraqioil@gmail.com *

* Proxy shares available for those who want to go inside the AGM - contact us asap *

With Corporate Pirates, music from The Carbon Town Crier and comedy from Hands ON Iraqi Oil, and with our full solidarity with the people of Rossport Ireland, Nigeria, Canada and beyond, who are fighting for their land, ecology, communities and survival, under threat from Shell.

Shell, the 60% Dutch-owned oil giant is holding its Annual General Meeting in both Amsterdam and London on May 20th. Shell has been angling to access long term control over Iraqi reserves ever since the company lost its concessions in the country through the oil industry nationalisations of the 60s and 70s.

Shell is one of five International Oil Companies negotiating Technical Service Agreements with the Iraqi Ministry of Oil for producing fields. These deals represent a foot in the door for companies to be given preferential status for longer term contracts granting the companies reserves for over a generation.

Fields on the agenda for Shell are the Akkas Gas Field in Anbar province - the site of US military massacres and numerous Iraqi uprisings since 2004; the Kirkuk field - a site of potential dispute between the Kurdish Regional Government and Baghdad; and the Khalifiya Field in the South, which it seeks to develop with Australia's BHP Billiton.

Oil privatisation is deeply unpopular in occupied Iraq, particularly given the support that the UK as an occupying power has given to Shell and BP to advance this agenda.

Shell has been lobbying the Iraqi government for Production Sharing Agreements - exclusive contracts lasting 30 years which would hand control of production, development and depletion of reserves to Shell.

Schmoozing the workers...

Shell has provided training to thousands of Iraqi oil sector employees in conjunction with the Department for International Development in both Oman and Cambridge in order to build relationships which the company views as key to securing a long-term future in occupied Iraq.

Easy oil, another 'Carbon Comfort Zone'...

With Iraq posessing the third largest oil reserves in the world, and some of the cheapest and easiest to access conventional oil on the planet, Shell is keen to book Iraqi reserves as its own. Iraq represents a step towards 'energy security' for Shell following the overstating of its' reserves by millions of barrels in 2004. But energy security for Shell, is likely to mean yet more relentless insecurity and injustice for the Iraqi people.

Join us in resisting Shell's occupation-propelled oil grab in Iraq...

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HANDS OFF IRAQI OIL is a UK coalition of development, anti-war, environmental and human rights groups opposed to the rip-off of Iraq's oil wealth. For more information see our website at: www.handsoffiraqioil.org.

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