GMontag's Journal: Halliburton's "Gouging": What Really Happened

December 19, 2003, 8:59 a.m.
Halliburton's "Gouging": What Really Happened
There's a good explanation -- if anyone is interested.

The obvious question raised by the discrepancy was: Why would Halliburton deliver high-priced fuel from Kuwait when it could be obtained at a much lower price from Turkey?

The company says it did so because the Army demanded that it deliver fuel from Kuwait. "The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said to find a fuel source in Kuwait," Halliburton said in a press release yesterday. "[Halliburton] sought and received bids from four suppliers in Kuwait. One met the Corps' specification, and that is the one the Corps approved."

Umm, so where is the controversy? "Evil Halliburton" gave a list to it's customer and the CUSTOMER picked the supplier. This is just like whining that you were ripped off when you tell your homebuilder to use a certain carpenter out of a list of three and you are billed exactly what they told you in the beginning.

Sigh, haven't you learned yet?

[TheConfusedOne]

You're trying to wield logic against the "plastic turkey" forces. The really funny part is how the cries of "No blood for oil" haven't changed now that we have to import oil into Iraq...

I'd be more concerned with a few other things

[buffer-overflowed]

They're doing. Now this is all from Iraqi blogs, but it makes sense to me because it's perfectly normal US company behavior.

They get the contract from the US for say 50 million, they then contract the work out to an Iraqi or other regional firm for say 20 million. Boom instant 30 million dollar profit. Amount of work: accepting bids and evaluating them. Seems to me we have whole departments for that. Why do we need to waste my money on both?

I'm more worried about that behavior, because it seems waste