Iraq Oil Report

As Iraq Oil Report reported last Thursday, the Oil Ministry is taking an end around to stop companies who signed controversial deals with the Kurdistan Regional Government from moving forward with the deals.

Iraq warned South Korea it could suspend crude oil exports if a South Korean consortium led by a state-run company proceeds with an oil exploration project in a Kurdish-controlled region, Reuters reports, citing a Yonhap news report.

AFP reports the Korea National Oil Company will not ditch the exploration deal it reached with the Kurds.

An editorial in Korea Times chastises the Korean consortium for ignoring Baghdad and signing the deal.

The price of oil is staying high because of the ongoing attacks of Turkey on northern Iraq, Reuters reports. It’s likely not going to have any real impact outside of geopolitical tensions, however. The Kurdish separatists, which Turkey says it is after, have threatened to target the northern Iraq pipeline sending oil from Kirkuk to Turkey, but that’s unlikely.

What could affect Iraq’s oil production? Continued attacks by insurgents, which until recent fortifications were made, kept the Kirkuk pipeline largely offline since 2003.

A suicide bomber was prevented Tuesday from entering a housing complex of the North Oil Company, Hamid Ahmed reports for The Associated Press.

ExxonMobil was awarded a 730,000 barrel contract for Kirkuk crude, Hassan Hafidh reports for Dow Jones Newswires. It’s the 12th such sale this year, thanks to the improvements in the line.

Because of the inconsistent nature of supplies north, however, Iraq in January will start selling three month, 300,000 barrels per day contracts.

Those displaced in the north from the Turkish bombings must find alternative livelihoods according to the U.N.’s humanitarian office.

Top Ten Myths about Iraq 2007, a good year-end recap by University of Michigan Middle East expert Juan Cole, from his website Informed Comment.

Refugees from war-torn Iraq face difficult wait as President Bush is pressed to allow more in, Jessie Mangalimanand Mike Swift report for The Mercury News.

The success of the “surge” is an illusion, Conn Hallinan writes in Foreign Policy In Focus.

The controversial move of the U.S. military to back Sunni “Awakening” forces has created another wedge between Sunni and Shia political groups, Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail report for Inter Press Service.

The many regional and sectarian leaders in Iraq now wield a power over ordinary citizens that the new national institutions cannot, and may not want to temper. Iraq may fall into a second violent civil war. Or it may become an imperial protectorate with a privileged military and sharp class divisions, Charles Tripp writes in Le Monde diplomatique.

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