Kuwait Inc.'s Past Santa Fe International Investment

The largest direct investment of Kuwait Inc. in the United States during the early 1990s, however, was still the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation’s Santa Fe International. In the early 1980s the Kuwait Inc. government-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corporation [KPC] purchased 100 percent of Santa Fe International, a U.S. transnational corporation specializing in oil exploration, for $2.5 billion. Kuwait Inc.’s Santa Fe International owned 275 oil and gas leases, worth approximately $14 million, on 252,950 acres of U.S. government-owned land and had pending leases covering an additional 299,000 acres on U.S. government-owned land during the early 1990s.

As a result of these Santa Fe International current and pending oil and gas leases in 1991, the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation was permitted to drill for oil on U.S. soil in order to turn U.S. oil into more Kuwait Inc. government investment funds to play with on foreign stock markets. KPC’s Santa Fe International also acquired Andover Oil Company for $150 million in 1982 in order to further increase the U.S. oil and gas holdings of KPC’s U.S. subsidiary. The annual sales of KPC’s California-based Santa Fe International subsidiary exceeded $1 billion during the early 1990s.

To increase its political influence in Washington, D.C. after it purchased Santa Fe International, the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation hired the now-deceased former U.S. President Gerald Ford to be a Santa Fe International director. The government of Kuwait Inc. also hired Ford’s former National Security Affairs advisor, Brent Scowcroft (http://www.scowcroft.com/html/staff/scowcroft.html ) , to be a Santa Fe International director at the same time. Santa Fe International Director Scowcroft, like George Bush I, was a member of David Rockefeller’s Trilateral Commission at that time. While serving as a director on Kuwait Inc.’s Santa Fe International corporate board in 1984, 1985 and 1986, Scowcroft also worked with former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger as vice-chairman of the New York and Washington, D.C. consulting firm of Kissinger Associates. As President Bush I’s National Security Affairs advisor, Scowcroft—like his former business partner Henry Kissinger—was an advocate of using Pentagon military forces to “liberate” the homeland of Kuwait Inc. in 1991.

To further increase its special influence in United States politics during the 1980s, the Kuwait Inc. government’s Santa Fe International subsidiary formed a political action committee [PAC] which contributed $70,108 to the election campaign chests of influential U.S. politicians during the 1984 U.S. congressional elections. An additional $71,750 was contributed by KPC’s Santa Fe International PAC to U.S. congressional candidates in 1986.

In May 1987, KPC’s Santa Fe International also created a new company, Chesapeake Shipping Inc.. The purpose of creating Kuwait Inc.’s Chesapeake Shipping Inc. subsidiary was to quickly reflag Kuwaiti oil tankers in the Persian Gulf with U.S. flags, so as to more easily enable the Reagan administration to commit U.S. military forces to the protection of special Kuwait Inc. commercial interests, as well as to the protection of special U.S. transnational oil company interests in the Persian Gulf waters.

In addition to operating out of the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation office at 45 Rockefeller Plaza, Kuwait Inc. operated in the U.S.A. in 1991 under the auspices of the Bank of Kuwait and The Middle East, the Commercial Bank of Kuwait SAK, KPC U.S. Holdings and the Kuwait Foreign Trading Contractor and Investment Company [KTFCIC].

Downtown telephoned the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation office in New York City in early 1991. According to the person who answered the telephone then, this office was “just a small four-person office” which mainly focused on “assisting students from Kuwait who are studying in the United States on Kuwait Petroleum scholarships.” She stated that the business operations of KPC in the U.S.A. were controlled by KPC’s London office and suggested Downtown telephone the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation in London if it wished to speak to a company public relations official.

(Downtown 1/23/91)

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