The rest of the U.S. and global media have now picked up on my story for UPI from Tuesday on the four new approved and two already signed production sharing contracts with foreign firms.
Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government made a sudden but not unexpected announcement Tuesday it had signed four more controversial oil deals. While the move highlights success in the region, it comes as the central government in Baghdad struggles to meet long-term agenda items like a national oil law.
Iraq’s government reacted to the news in the same vein it has to similar deals in the past: criticizing the KRG for a perceived unilateral move in an oil sector lacking needed identity and saying it is fueling the fire separating KRG-Baghdad compromise.
There are few new updates, but each outlet has its own take. Here are the best:
Ilnur Cevik in The New Anatolian: The Oil War of Iraq, with a unique lede:
Iraqi Kurds: We will run our oil industry
Defiant Iraqi Kurds say they are fed up with the delays in the legislation of the oil law in Baghdad and have passed their own hydrocarbons bill and signed agreements with Hunt Oil and Dana Gas
Baghdad : But will I allow you to sell it?
Iraqi government says the deal with Hunt and Dana are null and void and see the Kurdish moves as secessionist. They say KRG has to get Baghdad’s approval to sell the oil in world markets.
Ankara: How will you export it abroad?
Turkey says the Iraqi Kurds can extract the oil, develop the fields and may even get permission from Baghdad to sell it but it has to pass through Turkish territory and Ankara’s approval is needed.
AlsumariaTV: Kurdistan working aside from Iraq government
The Canadian Press: New Kurdish oil deals strain ties with Baghdad; Canada’s Heritage Oil involved
Richard A. Oppel Jr. in The New York Times: Kurds Reach New Oil Deals, Straining Ties With Baghdad
Mark Gregory in the BBC: Iraqi Kurds sign four oil deals
Iraq’s Oil
Simon Webb of Reuters reports more on the difficulty Iraqi Kurdistan may face in sending oil to the international market.
Two weeks following a bomb blast on the habitually attacked and nonfunctioning Kirkuk(Iraq)-Ceyhan(Turkey) pipeline, both Marketwatch and Reuters report oil is flowing north again.
Gerry J. Gilmore writes in the American Forces Press Service Iraq Reconstruction Efforts Make Meaningful Progress, General Says
Oil and electricity production and availability constitute the bedrock of Iraq’s economic recovery, (Brig. Gen. Michael J. Walsh, commanding general of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Gulf Region Division, told reporters at a Baghdad news conference). Refineries need dependable electrical power to process fuel, he noted, and electrical generation requires high-quality petroleum-derived fuel to run plants.
More than 95 percent of Iraq’s economy is dependent on petroleum exports, he added. The country’s inefficient 1960s- to 1970s-era infrastructure was poorly maintained and requires intensive rehabilitation, he added.
“And, you can imagine if you were to drive a sports car for 30 years without changing its oil, its belts and its filters, how well it would run,” Walsh said.
However, many petroleum-production goals in post-Saddam Iraq have now been met, Walsh said, noting that about $1.7 billion worth of oil-sector projects were completed in June. Iraqi industry also has reached its daily goals of producing 3,000 tons of liquefied petroleum gas, 3 million barrels of crude oil, and 800 million cubic feet of natural gas.
While nearly all of U.S. reconstruction funds have been spent, Iraq is NOWHERE near producing 3 million barrels per day, more like 2 million at best. The Corps of Engineers officially pegs capacity at 3 million bpd, but that is too optimistic.
Iraq’s Fuels
Iraq Slogger reports on Household Fuel Speaks of Iraq’s Restive Summer: Data Reveals a Story of Propane and Politics
What story hides in the price of propane? IraqSlogger’s exclusive data documents major fluctuations in the price of cooking gas, a widespread household fuel, in August and September, in Baghdad and in the Iraqi provinces. In a striking way, the data capture the history of the last two months in Iraq.
Cooking gas (ghaz al-tabkh) is a staple purchase for Iraqi households. The fuel, usually a mix containing butane or propane, is used for food preparation in the home. Cooking fuel is sold in reusable standard-sized cylinders which are exchanged at fuel stations when emptied.
Iraq’s Electricity
Iran Daily writes a very strange article that Iran soon will be able to supply all Iraq’s electricity needs.
Ken Dey of the Idaho Statesman on Idahoan workers working for Boise-based firm Washington Group International’s work on Iraq reconstruction, including the electricity sector.
Society, Security and Politics
University of Michigan Middle East expert Juan Cole writes about the state of new foreign fighters coming to Iraq to fight.
A Saudi cleric has given a fatwa forbidding Saudi youth from going abroad (i.e. Iraq) to fight jihad. Al-Hayat reports in Arabic Al-Maliki Arab nationalists such as Abdel Bari Atwan at al-Quds al-Arabi are incensed by it. Atwan can’t see much difference between the US occupation of Iraq and the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, which lots of Saudis went to fight.
The US military captured a cache of information on foreign jihadis fighting in Iraq, with 500 names. Gen. Petraeus has made a special effort to track down and capture the foreign jihadis, who have been behind some massive and destabilizing bombings (though I think the US press over-emphasizes the foreigners and underestimates the indigenous Iraqi guerrilla groups).
Iraqi society is mixed on Sen. Joseph Biden’s legislation calling for a decentralized federalism in Iraq, which was approved by three-quarters of the Senate.
Nearly all but the Kurds are against it, but the Shiite-dominated Parliament has been unable to approve a resolution rebuking the Biden amendment to the 2008 defense funding bill.
This week the Iraq Federation of Oil Unions and General Union of Oil Employees in Basra issued a brief statement:
The General Union of Oil and Gas denounces the statement from the U.S. Congress that suggest the partitioning of Iraq into different parts. At the same time that we are denouncing such statements, we also reject this cowardly act that is aimed at the security and stability of our country, Iraq. Such a statement on the part of the U.S. Congress demonstrates clearly that U.S. occupation forces have failed to control Iraq.
Iraq will be united in spite of what the U.S. says. We are calling on the Iraqi government and Iraqi Parliament to reject such statements that signify the U.S. government’s hatred and meanness toward the people of Iraq – the people who managed to confront all sorts of conspiracies and il-fatd schenes during the past period.
- Hassan Juma’a Awad, IFOU and GUOE president
Biden insists the resolution, which is non-binding, is being misinterpreted. He and co-strategist Leslie Gelb of the Council on Foreign Relations explain in a Washington Post op-ed.
He also met with visiting Iraq President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, Wednesday and issued this release:
At the meeting, President Talabani welcomed the Senate’s approval of the Biden-Brownback amendment last week supporting federalism in Iraq, on a bipartisan vote of 75-23. He expressed his strong belief that the amendment promotes the unity and territorial integrity of Iraq and is not, as some have mischaracterized it, a call for partition. He also emphasized that the amendment is completely consistent with the decision Iraqis have made to adopt a federal form of government in their Constitution.
In addition, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, speaking in Arabic on Tuesday to al-Iraqiyah Television, made the following remarks regarding the Biden-Brownback Federalism Amendment: “They said they welcomed federalism. If federalism is what they really meant, why not? Federalism, after all, is stipulated in the Constitution. We, too, talked about federalism as this is a constitutional issue.”
Senator Biden said, “I welcome President Talabani’s support for the Biden-Brownback amendment, and also Prime Minster Maliki’s comments. Some – both in the United States and Iraq – have tried to mischaracterize our amendment as calling for the partition of Iraq. It is nothing of the sort. It calls for keeping Iraq together by bringing to life the federal system enshrined in its constitution. A federal Iraq is a united Iraq and the best path to a political settlement that virtually everyone agrees is necessary if we are to leave Iraq without leaving chaos behind.”
Trudy Rubin of the Philadelphia Inquirer writes a scathing review of the plan: Why a plan for Iraq’s soft partition would backfire
The Government Accountability Office has issued a new report: Stabilizing and Rebuilding Iraq: Serious Challenges Confront U.S. Efforts to Build the Capacity of Iraqi Ministries.
Hiba Dawood writes for UPI: the Iraq Press Roundup
