The US army said today it had given the main Iraqi oilwell firefighting
contract to a unit of Halliburton Co, a firm once run by Vice President
Dick Cheney, without any bidding.
Kellogg, Brown and Root, a unit of Houston, Texas-based Halliburton,
was handed the contract by the Army Corps of Engineers, which has been
placed in charge of fighting the blazes.
The contract had not been put out to tender, said the Corps spokesman,
Lieutenant Colonel Gene Pawlik.
Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) had already been asked by the Pentagon to
draw up plans for extinguishing oilwell fires in Iraq, Pawlik noted.
"It made the most sense to engage them in the near term as the company
to get the mission done because they were familiar with the details of the
fires themselves and what would be needed," he said.
The value of the contract would depend on scale of the work.
The chief of Britain's armed forces, Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, said on
Friday that Iraqi forces had set fire to seven oilwells in the south of
the country.
KBR would claim the cost of its services plus two to five per cent
depending on how it executed the job, Pawlik said.
"KBR was selected for this award based on the fact that KBR is the only
contractor that could commence implementing the complex contingency plan
on extremely short notice," the company said in a statement.
KBR said it had teams of well control and engineering contractors
preparing the initial phase.
The company was given a free hand to choose subcontractors for the
work, the Corps spokesman said.
KBR chose Houston-based Boots and Coots International, with which it
has a services and equipment partnership, and Wild Well Control Inc as
firefighting subcontractors.
President George W Bush's spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said he did not
have the details.
Asked about the contracting process, Fleischer told a news conference:
"The question that people want to be answered is we have a plan in place
to put out the oil fires. Refer your question to the agencies involved. I
am not familiar with the details of this contract."
In a statement late yesterday, the Defence Department said the Army
Corps of Engineers would rely largely on contractors to extinguish the
oilwell fires and assess the damage to facilities.
Kellogg, Brown and Root was the prime contractor for the initial phase,
the Pentagon said. The contract would be in force for an interim period,
until additional contracts were procured, it said.
Subcontractor Boots and Coots welcomed its selection.
"We have surveyed these wells and are preparing to mobilise the
equipment," Boots and Coots president Brian Krause said in a statement.
"We will begin stabilisation of the wells once the location around the
wells is secure," he said.
Boots and Coots was brought into Kuwait in 1991 to control about 240 of
more than 700 burning wells following the Gulf War, it said.
Cheney was chief executive of the KBR parent company Halliburton, a
major oil services company, for five years until 2000.
AFP
