By Prensa Latina,
Washington : The US invasion of Iraq tripled oil prices and forced the world to spend $6 additional billion to cover the new price hike, said experts, quoted on Tuesday by the AlterNet website.
If it were not by the conflict in the Arab nation, the price of a crude oil barrel would be under $40, far from the $135 that it currently costs, said economist, expert in energy issues, Mamdouh Salameh.
According to Salameh, three years before the aggression in March, 2003, then Iraqi President Saddam Hussein proposed to the White House to open 10 huge oilfields, in exchange for lifting the severe sanctions imposed on Baghdad.
Those oil wells could have avoided the escalation in prices of the so called black gold. However, the US plans were occupying Iraq and take the hydrocarbon, the director of a fuel market consultancy firm explained.
The also World Bank advisor said conquest of the only country with enough reserves to increase trade of the valued liquid brought a fatal result to the international community.
The nation of the Persian Gulf used to produce 3.5 million daily barrels before the war, a quantity that barely reaches 2 million barrels now, said Salameh.
According to bank investor Goldman Sachs, the situation could put the price of a crude oil barrel to $200 the next year, causing a negative impact in the global economy.
The predictable situation would be devastating, especially if we consider the current impact of the high oil prices, AlterNet said.
The source recalled the current damage to the sectors of transportation, housing, and the human basic needs, being severer damage to poor countries, it said.