The Hunt for Black Gold
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In addition to its Pentagon connections, Hunt Refining, too, has tight ties to President Bush. Ray Hunt's son Hunter Hunt, the senior vice president of Hunt Oil Company, is, according to his corporate biography, "also involved in special projects that occur at Hunt Refining Company." The younger Hunt, however, took a leave of absence from the family businesses, from 1999-2001, to work for the Bush presidential campaign "as the primary Policy Advisor responsible for energy issues" and chief architect of Bush's national energy policy.
While Hunt Oil is finally making headlines and garnering press attention for its Bush administration connections and dealings in occupied Iraq, just as it should, Hunt Refining's complex ties to the force in charge of occupying that country aren't considered news at all. Despite the obvious financial relationship and network of curious ties that extend from the White House and the Pentagon to Texas, Alabama, and Iraq, this part of the story is just considered business as usual.
Flush with regularly increasing taxpayer dollars from the DoD, Hunt Refining is now embarking on an ambitious expansion program to increase its output. Currently, Hunt's Tuscaloosa, Alabama refinery processes 52,000 barrels of crude oil per day, according to a recent article in the trade magazine South Central Construction. The company aims, however, to increase its production to 65,000 barrels per day, resulting in "an approximate doubling of gasoline and diesel fuel production." According to a report in the April issue of Hydrocarbon Processing, the first of Hunt's new processing units will "come online in late 2009. The revamp is scheduled for completion in 2010." All of this is, of course, occurring as the Pentagon needs increasing quantities of fuel to carry on its wars.
In 2008, Hunt Refining has already received a $65.4 million aviation-fuel deal from the Pentagon that has a "performance completion" deadline of April 30, 2009. If recent contracts are any guide, this is an indication that it stands to take in record amounts from the U.S. military before year's end.
The DoD is, as national security expert Noah Shachtman notes, "the world's largest energy consumer." With no end in sight for its current wars and occupations, which have driven its fuel consumption sky-high, and ever increasing oil prices (undoubtedly, in turn, affected at least modestly by the Pentagon's ravenous need for fuel), ever more taxpayer dollars are going to be funneled to the many oil companies on its—and so America's—payroll.
This is how the government now works and it should be a story—and Hunt Refining should be part of it. But don't count on that. It's taken the mainstream media five years to make it to the oil story in Iraq. How many more before it notices that everyday oil operations in Washington are worth a look?
With its increasing contracts from the DoD, its soon to be ramped up capacity, and the toe-hold its corporate partner possesses in Pentagon-occupied Iraq, Hunt Refining is likely to be a player in Washington and a major beneficiary of DoD dollars long after George W. Bush has gone back to Texas. But until the mainstream media begins to tease out the close-knit relationships among Hunt, other energy corporations, and the Pentagon that enable our military to function on a daily basis, key aspects not just of major scandals but of how our world works will remain hidden, even if in plain sight.
Nick Turse is the associate editor and research director of Tomdispatch.com. He has written for the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Adbusters, the Nation, and regularly for Tomdispatch.com. His first book, The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives, an exploration of the new military-corporate complex in America, was recently published by Metropolitan Books. His website is Nick Turse.com.
Personally, I think we should bring tar and feathering back to the town square.