{"id":277348,"date":"2010-02-04T13:16:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-04T18:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"e2249889-c78b-43e3-9643-b1d7d4aa587b:391349"},"modified":"2010-02-04T13:16:00","modified_gmt":"2010-02-04T18:16:00","slug":"haitis-untapped-oil-gas-and-mineral-wealth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/277348","title":{"rendered":"Haiti’s untapped oil, gas and mineral wealth"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Beneath the rubble and tragedy of Haiti lies what some geophysicists believe may be one of the globe\u2019s richest zones for oil and gas hydrocarbons outside the Middle East.<\/p>\n

The same tectonic plates of North America, South America and the Caribbean that rub together to cause earthquakes, also form one of the world\u2019s most active geological zones, and can push vast volumes of oil and gas up from the Earth\u2019s mantle, according to economic researcher and anti peak oil theorist F. William Engdahl.<\/p>\n

In an article titled The Fateful Geological Prize Called Haiti<\/a>, he explains that the country lies in an unusual zone that may be straddling one of the world\u2019s largest unexplored zones of oil, gas and valuable rare strategic minerals.<\/p>\n

The massive oil reserves of the Persian Gulf and the region stretching from the Red Sea into the Gulf of Aden are apparently at a similar convergence zone of large tectonic plates. So to are oil-rich zones in Indonesia and offshore California.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn short, in terms of the physics of the earth, precisely such intersections of tectonic masses as run directly beneath Haiti have a remarkable tendency to be the sites of vast treasures of minerals, as well as oil and gas, throughout the world,\u201d Mr. Engdahl writes.<\/p>\n

He points out that in 2005, after Haiti\u2019s first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was ousted, University of Texas geologists began mapping the geological data of the Caribbean Basins. The sponsors of the project are Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and BHP Billiton.<\/p>\n

Mr. Engdahl goes on to ask why the region hasn\u2019t been mapped earlier, particularly given the vast oil production that exists off Mexico, Louisiana, and the entire Caribbean, along with a focus on energy security in the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow it emerges that major oil companies were at least generally aware of the huge oil potential of the region long ago, but apparently decided to keep it quiet.\u201d<\/p>\n

He theorizes that a U.S. military occupation of Haiti under the guise of earthquake disaster \u2018relief\u2019 would give Washington and private business interests tied to it a geopolitical prize of the first order.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Haitian Lawyers\u2019 Leadership Network founder Marguerite \u201cEzili Danto\u201d Laurent<\/a>, suggested that the United States, France and Canada are engaged in a balkanization of the island for future mineral control. This is also supposedly being done under the guise of emergency relief work.<\/p>\n

She cites rumours that suggest Canada wants the North of Haiti, where it already has mining interests. The United States apparently has its eyes set on Port-au-Prince and the island of La Gonaive just offshore, which has been identified as having vast oil resources and is bitterly contested by France. Meanwhile, China is cited as potentially objecting to such a division of Haiti\u2019s wealth given its veto power at the United Nations.<\/p>\n

Clearly, everybody wants to get in the earthquake business in some way or another, notes Jerry Mazza<\/a>. And while conspiracy theories abound about the motivations behind foreign aid coming to Haiti, the possibility of vast amounts of resources below the surface presents a promising possibility for a country in such desperate need.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Ratner<\/a> <\/p>\n

Photo: A Haitian woman carries a sack of rice through the ruins of  buildings in downtown Port-au-Prince on February 04, 2010. The January 12 earthquake that hit Haiti killed around 170,000 people and left one million homeless and short of medicine, food and water in the impoverished Caribbean nation of nine million people. (ROBERTO SCHMIDT\/AFP\/Getty Images) <\/i><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beneath the rubble and tragedy of Haiti lies what some geophysicists believe may be one of the globe\u2019s richest zones for oil and gas hydrocarbons outside the Middle East. The same tectonic plates of North America, South America and the Caribbean that rub together to cause earthquakes, also form one of the world\u2019s most active […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4059,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-277348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4059"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277348\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}