Iraq Oil Report

Plus:
*Iraqi Kurdistan’s oil minister calls for fairness
*ONGC Mittal looking at Iraq
*Hard time in Parliament, budget faces walkout
*Sadr, seriously

Oil has started to flow again in the northern pipeline from Kirkuk to Turkey, Alsumaria TV reports. The pipeline has seen worse days, such as most of the time since the war began. It has been a major target of insurgents, keeping it offline more times than not. But repairs and a new security program starting summer ’07 has allowed more oil to flow. The recent issue is from an explosion (perhaps at the hands of clumsy smugglers) and electricity shortages.

Ashti Hawrami, the Kurdistan Regional Government Minister for Natural Resources, on Tuesday said that the oil and gas sector must be managed fairly to ensure the unity of Iraq, according to a KRG release. The Natural Resources Minister made the remarks in his presentation to a Middle East Energy Conference at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, also known as Chatham House.

ONGC Mittal Energy Ltd, a joint venture between India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corp and Mittal Investments Sarl, is eyeing for opportunities in exploration and production in Iraq, Reuters reports.

Finance Minister Bayan Jabr is traveling abroad to convince deep-pocketed foreigners that it is now safe enough to invest in Iraq, Gina Chon reports for The Wall Street Journal.But a tougher sell these days is persuading his colleagues in government that foreign investment is a good idea in the first place.

Dozens of Iraqi legislators walked out of parliament Thursday over a controversial draft law that would lay out rules for provincial elections and set an Oct. 1 date for a new local vote. The walkout postponed a planned vote on the U.S.-backed measure on redistributing power in Iraq, The Associated Press reports.The last time Iraqis voted for local officials was in January 2005, when nationwide elections ushered in representational government across Iraq for the first time in modern history.

A compromise on the main sticking point holding up Iraq’s 2008 budget appeared possible Wednesday, but it and several other key reconciliation laws face potentially long delays, lawmakers and ministers said, Wisam Mohammed and Ahmed Rasheed report for Reuters. Iraqi lawmakers are set to vote on Thursday on the budget as well as laws governing the distribution of power between Baghdad and Iraq’s 18 provinces and another that would free thousands of mainly Sunni Arab detainees from Iraqi jails.

The dramatic decline in bloodshed in Iraq – at least until last week’s terrible market bombings in Baghdad – is largely due to Muqtada al-Sadr’s August 2007 unilateral ceasefire, a new International Crisis Group report says. Made under heavy U.S. and Iraqi pressure and as a result of growing discontent from his own Shiite base, Muqtada’s decision to curb his unruly movement was a positive step. But the situation remains highly fragile and potentially reversible. If the U.S. and others seek to press their advantage and deal the Sadrists a mortal blow, these gains are likely to be squandered, with Iraq experiencing yet another explosion of violence. The need is instead to work at converting Muqtada’s unilateral measure into a more comprehensive multilateral ceasefire that can create conditions for the movement to evolve into a fully legitimate political actor.

IraqSlogger reports of an initiative by Sadr in a Baghdad neighborhood to help facilitate the return to their homes of Sunnis displaced by violence.

The Shiite political scene in Iraq is getting nowhere with proposals for the post-occupation phase, Abd Al-Hussein Shaaban writes in The Daily Star. Shiites jumped enthusiastically into the political process after they received confirmation that they would have a prominent role in the Iraqi Governing Council. The council brought a divisive formula to Iraqi society along sectarian and ethnic rather than political and ideological bases, giving 13 Cabinet seats to Shiites, five each to Sunnis and Kurds, one to Turkmen, and one to Chaldeans and Assyrians.

Iraq’s most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has sharply reduced his workload in recent months, raising new questions about the health of the aged leader and the prospect of a dangerous power vacuum without a clear and dominant successor, Hamza Hendawi and Qassim Abdul-Zahra report for the AP.Any change in al-Sistani’s role or reach could have far-reaching consequences for both Iraq and the United States, which consider the Iranian-born cleric as perhaps the most powerful figure in Iraq and a vital stabilizing force in the oil-rich Shiite heartlands of southern Iraq. The most worrisome scenario is that — as al-Sistani’s vast clout possibly wanes — the majority Shiites could further splinter into factions that could rattle Iraq’s Shiite-led government and boost militias openly hostile to Washington.

The United States will not promise to defend Iraq nor seek permanent bases there under a planned agreement on future relations between the two states, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Wednesday, Reuters reports. “The status-of-forces agreement that is being discussed will not contain a commitment to defend Iraq and neither will any strategic framework agreement,” Gates told a U.S. Senate panel. Karen DeYoung of The Washington Post has more.

Al-Qaeda, increasingly tamped down in Iraq, is establishing cells in other countries as Osama bin Laden’s organization uses Pakistan’s tribal region to train for attacks in Afghanistan, the Middle East, Africa and the United States, the U.S. intelligence chief said yesterday, The Associated Press reports. “Al-Qaeda remains the pre-eminent threat against the United States,” Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell told senators more than six years after the Sept. 11 attacks.

A mother of five who says she was sexually harassed and assaulted while working for Halliburton/KBR in Iraq is headed for a secretive arbitration process rather than being able to present her case in open court, Maddy Sauer and Justin Rood report for ABC News.A judge in Texas has ruled that Tracy Barker’s case will be heard in arbitration, according to the terms of her initial employment contract. Barker says that while in Iraq she was constantly propositioned by her superior, threatened and isolated after she reported an incident of sexual assault.
—