Iraq Oil Report

Plus:
*Kurd leader Barzani says Kirkuk vote a must
*Who supports Shahristani on the KRG deals?
*$558M spent in Iraq oil sector, but no details, no transparency
*U.S. blamed for Basra refinery fire
*The Iraq Press Roundup
*and More

A majority of Iraq’s parliamentarians have signed an agreement against Iraqi Kurds’ moves to unilaterally develop the oil sector and control oil-rich Kirkuk, UPI reports.The new agreement between a dozen political factions in Iraq also aligns one-time opponents against a dominant Shiite political party that wants to create a large autonomous region in the oil-rich south.

A top Iraqi Kurdish leader says oil-rich Kirkuk’s fate will be decided in a vote, a day after a coalition of Sunni and Shiite Arabs united against Kurd plans, UPI reports.

Oil development or Iraq’s division?, Saadallah Al Fat’hi in Gulf News asks if Iraq’s government supports the oil minister in calling out the KRG’s oil deals.

The Iraqi government in Baghdad signed some $558.3 million worth of contracts with international companies to upgrade its downstream and upstream oil facilities in 2007, the Iraqi oil ministry said, Dow Jones Newswires reports. There are no details as to which firms won contracts, a blow to claims of transparency in Iraq.

A refinery fire in Iraq’s oil capital, Basra, with reports blaming a U.S. helicopter attack, has been contained without affecting output, UPI reports.

More from Argus Media.

Society, Security & Politics

The view from Iraq’s editorial pages, the Iraq Press Roundup by Hiba Dawood for UPI.

Unidentified gunmen have assassinated a senior member of the al-Sadr group led by Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr near Basra, Iran’s Press TV reports.

U.S. pushes Iraq to clear more ‘benchmarks’: Signs of political reconciliation are emerging in Iraq, raising US hopes that a logjam has broken, by Howard LaFranchi in The Christian Science Monitor

Turkey should have sealed off its borders to the PKK long ago, Ilnur Cevik writes in The New Anatolian. “We did not need American help in northern Iraq or air raids against the terrorist camps to start taking measures. Why didn’t anyone take these measures is an important question that needs to be answered.”

Why aren’t presidential candidates talking about the postwar era and how they would repair the damage this terrible war has done to the nation? After all, our own reconstruction is at stake, James Reston Jr. asks in USA Today.

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Plus:
*Iraq oil ends ‘07 with good and it’s-been-worse news
*Oil law update
*What Turkey wants
*Iraqi solutions, U.S. problems
*much more….

Turkey’s president made it clear during his visit to Washington this week that his country will continue a hard-line approach in dealing with the Kurdish guerrilla campaign in his country and ensuring Kirkuk, Iraq’s oil-rich northern city, doesn’t fall under control of Iraq’s Kurds.

After meetings with top officials, including President Bush, President Abdullah Gul exposed the fault line between U.S.-Turkey and U.S.-Kurd relations. …

Bulent Aliriza, director of the Center for Strategic & International Studies’ Turkey Project, said Turkey basically holds a three-point position on keeping Kirkuk from the KRG: “the city and the oil resources around it belong equally to Turkomen, Arabs and Kurds who live there; its incorporation by the Kurds would provide the economic underpinning of an independent Kurdish state, which Turkey opposes; and it’s contrary to the vital interest of the Turkomen who are ethnically related to the Turks.”

Read the entire article by Ben Lando for United Press International. Click HERE.

The future of Iraq’s oil-rich Kirkuk will be decided by the Constitutional Court, despite a new U.N. process, as the Kurds’ dispute with Baghdad continues, UPI reports.

NPR and WAMU host Diane Rehm spends a well-deserved hour discussing the issue, which you can listen to here.

Good news and not as bad bad news for Iraq oil

Iraq ended a deadly year by steadily increasing oil production, but about $1.4 billion in revenue was taken by the still booming black market, UPI reports.

Apparently Turkey and the U.S. will help deliver Iraq’s oil to the world market, at least that’s what Reuters is reporting based on a CNN Turk interview with Turkish Energy Minister Hilmi Guler, who was part of Gul’s delegation.

This is, however, on its face, a totally ABSURD story. Iraqis, like other normal people, would never turn their energy sector over to other countries. A proper explanation is more likely Guler is restating Turkey’s prerogative to be a continued and increase transporter of Iraqi oil to market, as well as provide an established energy transit route for Iraq’s natural gas, which will be a major European feed in the future.

Iraq’s Oil Law

The leader of the Iraqi Parliament’s Energy Committee has accused Iraq’s Kurdish leadership and the national ministerial council of holding up a draft oil law, UPI reports.

Turkey’s president says Turkish companies are ready to enter Iraq’s oil sector when a new oil law – which Gul backs — is passed, dodging a question on Iraqi Kurds’ oil deals, Ben Lando reports for UPI.

Legal and logistical questions remain for Iraq, despite talks with Shell and Total to develop the Akkas field, which may feed gas to both Syria and Europe, UPI reports.

Security, Society & Politics

Security Improvements May Not Produce National Reconciliation, the must read analysis by Eurasia Group Middle East Analyst Rochdi Younsi.

Read what the editorialists in Iraq’s press are saying: the Iraq Press Roundup UPI’s Hiba Dawood.

“Iraqi solutions for Iraqi problems.” That’ the new buzz phrase for the Bush administration in Iraq, Thomas E. Ricks and Karen DeYoung write in The Washington Post. It has evolved not from some altruistic breakthrough, but because a year ago President Bush outlined the infamous “benchmarks,” and very few have been met.

And it’s both correct, and grossly wrong.

“Iraqi solutions” is very respectable. Perhaps, even as far back as 2003, when people who had been away from Iraq for decades were propped up into power, and when the United States began its economic reformation of Iraq like a child playing with Legos, this phrase would have been more useful.

What are now being termed “Iraqi problems” are, for sure, problems Iraqis must face the consequences of. But it’s largely the handiwork of U.S. post-invasion, pro-sectarianism policy: The political discourse in Iraq is so religion/ethnicity-based that a meeting between Dennis Kucinich and Karl Rove would look like a love fest; a variety of armed forces and militias – some supported by the United States to varying degrees – are taking up arms against each other, the government and coalition troops; and, most importantly, an economy wrecked by U.S. policies of ignoring state enterprises and opening the floodgates of cheap import goods since 2003, Iraqi citizens lacking clean water, electricity, food, fuels, and an educational and healthcare system worse now than during Saddam Hussein.

So, it is up to the United States – politicians and citizens – and the world to decide how best to comply with a moral obligation of providing all the necessary support to Iraqis as they figure out the solution.

Of course, you can take the words of Sens. John McCain and Joe Lieberman, who wrote The Surge Worked in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

But can anyone just claim the surge led to a decrease in violence in, say, Baghdad? Tell that to my friend who’s brother-in-law was just killed in a suicide bombing at a funeral he was attending for a friend killed in a suicide bombing. A respectable look at just the demographics shows a HUGE shift from an ethnically diverse Baghdad in April 2006 to a mostly Shiite Baghdad in November 2007. There’s no one left to target after an area is ethnically cleansed – under U.S. occupation and the international law that governs it, no less.

A map of the demographics can be found in the review by Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies of the 2007 patterns of violence and casualties in Iraq.

He cautions for “strategic patience,” and lists a set of challenges that need to be met. They likely won’t, however, because it takes realistic and thoughtful engagement and planning, which neither the Bush administration nor the Republican or Democratic parties are capable of.

I’ll end by recommending another read of an op-ed by Revenue Watch Institute Middle East director Yahia Said in the International Herald Tribune.

Oh, and go ahead and visit the analysis by Ben Lando for UPI, Deeper than an oil law in Iraq.

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Plus:
*Explosion, fire at largest refinery Baiji
*Shiite/Sunni/Kurd deal-making and fighting over oil, Kirkuk
*Basra dismisses 1,000 police
*From Mothers to Martyrs
*Much, much more

There are mixed reports on Iraq’s resumption of oil exports to Turkey, which were shut down last week because of full storage tanks, not security impediments, United Press International reports. The Iraq State Oil Marketing Organization predicts 400,000 barrels per day of exports starting this month, as Iraq starts setting prices for its Kirkuk oil with more consistent exports through the pipeline to Ceyhan, Turkey.

Firefighters battled a fire in the largest refinery in Iraq, located in the northern city of Baiji, with early reports it was not caused by an attack, UPI reports.

More details from Sabah al-Bazee for Reuters.

The Al-Istaqama newspaper is reporting a “Japanese-based” oil company has signed a deal with Iraq’s Ministry of Oil to explore and drill in the Gharaf area in Dhi Qar province, northwest of Basra. A high-level official of either the province or Nasiriya, located in Dhi Qar, said the oil production will be fed to a new refinery, which is part of the deal.

Iraqi political factions upset with current leadership have pledged to support the central government in oil deals, an apparent knock to the Kurds, UPI reports.

The Kurdistan Regional Government and their leaders in Baghdad – including President of Iraq Jalal Talabani – are at odds with others in the central government – including Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani – over a number of issues: the national oil law, the KRG’s regional oil law and oil deals and the status of Kirkuk, to name a few.

This has prompted speculation that the Kurdish Alliance will leave Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s governing coalition, which relies on the KA for its slim majority. The Voices of Iraq news agency reports Talabani is denying he’ll leave the government. It’s not clear how the new anti-Kurd/Maliki pact, nor the reported deal struck between the Kurds and a disaffected Sunni bloc, will affect power relations in Baghdad.

Regardless, the issue over Kirkuk is far from settled. Iraq’s Kurdish deputy prime minister warned Monday that failure to resolve the fate of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk could result in more strife and accused people within the government of blocking a solution, Qassim Abdul-Zahra reports for The Associated Press.

For more on the status of both Kirkuk and Basra, Iraq’s two oil capitals, read my story for UPI here.

Saboteurs brought down a power line, cutting all electricity from the northern town of Baiji, Iraq, to areas south, an Electricity Ministry spokesman said, UPI reports.

Iraq’s Electricity Ministry says an unnamed Japanese firm will reconstruct the Taji power plant, located just outside Baghdad, UPI reports.

Iraq is looking to develop the western Akkaz gas field, which may feed European customers via Syria, UPI reports.

No mandarin in the Iraqi oil ministry is likely to dine alone over the next few years. Every international major has people on the ground, spending big sums on soft persuasion, from the status update of the Financial Times’ Lex, titled Iraqi Oil Dreams.

Mission Not Yet Accomplished: How Iraq figures in Big Oil’s dreams, by Linda McQuaig at ZMag.org. McQuaig is a journalist and author of It’s the Crude, Dude: Greed, Gas, War and the American Way, published by St. Martin’s Press.

The “Price Check” column by IraqSlogger.com details Baghdad’s supply of black market fuels, which have stabilized throughout the capital’s neighborhoods over the past few weeks.

Security, Society & Politics

Iraq surge brings a lull in violence but no reconciliation, by Steve Negus in the Financial Times.

A high-level delegation from the Arab League will arrive in Iraq in the next few days to activate the national reconciliation project, a member of the Iraqi parliament said, Voices of Iraq news agency reports.

The Iraq Press Roundup by Hiba Dawood for UPI.

Basra’s police boss has transferred 1,000 of his police officers to stations outside the city in a move to purge the force of elements believed to be loyal to their political and sectarian factions, Abed Battat reports for Azzaman.

New look at foreign fighters in Iraq: An analysis shows that the bulk of them come from countries allied with the US, by Gordon Lubold for The Christian Science Monitor.

From Mothers To Martyrs

An investigation into the “New Phenomena of Women Suicide Bombers in Iraq,” by Farhana Ali in IraqSlogger.com. Ali is a Policy Analyst at the U.S. think tank the Rand Corp.

The U.S. in Iraq

Iraq’s Unknown Economy, a new op-ed inThe Washington Times by Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

While his writing continues to be a little too cheery and Administration-influenced (“Iraq’s security situation improves dramatically” ), this report is right on posing the chilling rhetorical Q&A:

While the U.S. government can point to many individual projects that are progressing or reaching the ribbon-cutting phase, we do not have a sense of overall national trends. How many Iraqis get water? How many have their trash picked up, or sewage removed dependably from their neighborhoods? How many get the water they need to irrigate their crops? How many get basic health care when they need it? How many of their kids are in school? And how do all these numbers compare to last year, or the latter years of Saddam’s rule — important benchmarks in shaping Iraqis’ perceptions of their government’s performance (not to mention that of the United States)?

The answers are blowing in the wind. American aid agencies either do not have viable strategies to collect meaningful data or believe they must defer to sovereign Iraqi authorities on such matters.

Iraq’s Economy

Parliament was supposed to vote Monday on Iraq’s 2008 budget, Voices of Iraq reports.

Iraq’s two successful mobile telephone network operators MTC Atheer and Iraqna have merged into Zain In Iraq to serve nearly 7.5 million customers all over the country, Voices of Iraq reports.

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Plus:
*Political disputes 2008
*Wanted: Investors in Iraq’s power sector
*Wanted: Solution to displaced persons disaster

Iraq’s Oil Ministry said all companies interested in winning contracts need to register as Iraq moves closer to its first tenders of oil fields, Ben Lando reports for United Press International.

There have been mixed messages from the ministry, however, as to whether certain fields will be awarded in an open bidding process or negotiated between the ministry and a selected company. And the type of contract itself, a controversial aspect, has not been specified by the ministry.

“Contracts and licensing directory in (the) Oil Ministry on Wednesday called on all qualified and well-known international companies to submit their applications to work in Iraq,” ministry spokesman Assem Jihad was quoted by the Voices of Iraq news agency. “Companies have to fill in application forms and submit the documents before the end of January 2008.” …

More from Reuters, as well as United Press International’s recap of Iraq oil in 2007.

The Voices of Iraq news agency reports Iraqi leaders are to meet next week to figure out solutions to political disputes. Take a quick look through the most recent, say, 6 posts at Iraq Oil Report and you’ll see how hard such a deal may be to reach.

Representatives of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, however, met Thursday with officials from his chief rival’s party, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim and his Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, in an effort to cement a tenuous peace agreement the two signed in October after violent clashes between their followers, Bradley Brooks reports for The Associated Press.

Iraq’s power sector, looking for needed investors, is getting the loudest and most active response from neighboring Iran, UPI reports.

Iraq’s culture of corruption stems from the actions of the international community and the controversial UN oil-for-food scheme, the deputy prime minister Barham Saleh said on Thursday, AFP reports.

A humanitarian request to President Bush has been issued by numerous NGOs, religious and other advocacy groups over the continued and unabated refugee crisis in and out of Iraq.

More from Jamie Gumbrecht of McClatchy Newspapers.

The Iraq Press Roundup by UPI’s Hiba Dawood.