Mobil, CIA Secrets May Come Out in Bribery Trial of Oil Adviser
Aug. 25 (Bloomberg) -- In the mid-1990s, long before oil prices topped $60 a barrel, U.S. companies sought access to Kazakhstan, a Central Asian nation that the U.S. State Department says will be among the world's top 10 producers of crude by 2015.
First, they had to win approval from Jim Giffen, a New York investment banker who became an official in Kazakhstan's government and held sway over its energy deals.
``You couldn't go to a Kazakh minister, particularly if you were an American company, without going through Giffen,'' says Ed Chow, who managed external affairs at Chevron Overseas Petroleum Ltd., a unit of San Ramon, California-based Chevron Corp.
Chevron, the second-largest U.S. oil company, avoided Giffen by arriving in the country before he amassed power, says Chow, 55, who's now an oil and gas consultant in Leesburg, Virginia. Others couldn't.
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