Plus:
*China-Iraq oil deals make progress
*Shahristani doubles today’s production for two-year goal
*Shahristani in Ankara for gas talks
*Wind power for water
*The Future of Kirkuk
*The Iraq Press Roundup
Iraq will wind up negotiations with five Big Oil firms later this month on key fields and soon announce the firms that qualify for an upcoming bidding round. Oil Ministry spokesman Assem Jihad also confirmed to United Press International’s Ben Lando via phone the country’s Council of Ministers gave its blessing to the ministry’s plans.
“The Ministry of Oil has the legal situation to sign contracts according to the oil law,” Jihad said. “The Ministry of Oil has that ability.”
Later this month Iraqi negotiators will meet with representatives from Shell, BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Total for technical support contracts aimed at increasing five of Iraq’s largest and oldest fields by 100,000 barrels per day each. The two-year deals are intended to bring equipment, training and further studies.
Jihad said Iraq is considering paying the companies with oil in lieu of cash but is in talks with the United Nations to ensure that’s OK.
More than 70 companies, Jihad said — around 150, according to Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani — have registered to qualify for a bidding round to be held later this month aimed at developing a number of other fields. The ministry is scarce on details but said it will be fully transparent.
The governor of Iraq’s Wasit province says he renegotiated a Saddam-era oil deal with the China National Petroleum Corp, UPI reports. Iraq’s Oil Ministry said previously it would attempt to bring the deal — still considered valid under international law — and a handful others like it in line with Iraq’s new hydrocarbons legal regime. Baghdad hasn’t announced its official endorsement of the Wasit deal yet.
Shahristani said Iraq intends to almost double its oil production over the next two years, to 4.5 mln barrels per day, Thomson Financial reports.
The Oil Minister is also in the Iraq delegation to Turkey, led by the president. It comes a week after Iraq, Turkish and U.S. energy officials met in Istanbul, Ben Lando of UPI reports.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani is due to arrive in Ankara tomorrow (March 7) for a three-day visit, with energy cooperation and the presence of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in northern Iraq expected to top the agenda, Gareth Jenkins reports for The Jamestown Foundation’s Eurasia Daily Monitory. However, Turkey has refused to classify the trip as an “official visit,” downgrading it to a “working visit.” The calculated snub is partly because few Turks have forgotten Talabani’s support for the PKK during the mid-1990s, when, as head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), he allowed the organization to use the region of northern Iraq controlled by the PUK as a platform for attacks into Turkey. However, the main reason for Ankara’s refusal to grant Talabani’s visit official status appears to be that it still regards him primarily as a Kurd rather than the president of the whole of Iraq.
Turkey unleashed air and artillery strikes against Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq on Wednesday, officials in this Kurdish city said, five days after the Turks completed a major ground offensive in the mountainous border region, Asso Ahmed and Alexandra Zavis report for the Los Angeles Times.
A lack of fuel, too little electricity and banks without cash — local governors from northern Iraq aired their complaints to Cabinet ministers Wednesday in a rare meeting aimed at trying to unite a divided country and rebuild its devastated infrastructure, Anna Johnson reports for The Associated Press. Wednesday’s meeting, held at a U.S. military base outside of Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, was an attempt to build trust between governors from Iraq’s seven northern provinces and Cabinet ministers along with the U.S. military and Iraqi army.
Britain’s leading civilian in Basra after the fall of Iraq today publishes an indictment of Whitehall and Washington failures in the aftermath of the invasion, Richard Norton-Taylor writes for The Guardian.When Sir Hilary Synnott accepted an invitation to be Iraq’s “King of the South”, he was told by the Foreign Office that it was “a bloody mess”. Just what kind of mess he reveals in Bad Days in Basra, denouncing what he calls Washington’s “spectacular misjudgments” and UK government mistakes.
An Iraqi village east of Baghdad used windmill-powered groundwater pumps to get its own drinking-water supply for the first time since 2003, UPI reports.
The Iraqi deputy prime minister met with provincial leaders in the seven northern Iraqi provinces to discuss reconstruction issues at a U.S.-led conference, UPI reports.
Iraqi Sunnis say Iran is working to solidify economic control, Kathleen Ridolfo reports for Radio Free Europe/Radio Libert.Even before his foot touched Iraqi soil, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad had much to celebrate. His country has entrenched itself in the Iraqi economy, so much so that observers say Iraq is becoming economically, if not politically, subordinate to Iran. This point has not been lost on the Sunni Arab press in Iraq, nor by pan-Arab dailies, which surmised that Tehran has shrewdly filled a vacuum long ignored by Arab leaders.
Are the media dumb or just out to lunch? Robert Scheer asks in the San Francisco Chronicle. Sorry to be intemperate, but how else can one explain the meager attention paid to the truly historic visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Iraq? Not only is he the first Mideast head of state to visit the country since its alleged liberation, but the very warm official welcome offered by the Iraqi government to the most vociferous critic of the United States speaks volumes to the abject failure of the Bush doctrine.
THE FUTURE OF KIRKUK: THE REFERENDUM AND ITS POTENTIAL
IMPACT ON DISPLACEMENT, a new report by The Brookings Institution and University of Bern Project on Internal Displacement.
The Iraq Press Roundup, a recap of today’s Iraqi editorial pages by UPI’s Hiba Dawood.
Inside Iraqi Politics, a new series by The Long War Journal.
Part 3: Examining the Iraqi legislative branch – looks at the structure and political composition of the Iraqi legislative branch, including a review of sectarian distribution and major political blocs within the Council of Representatives.
Tomorrow – Part 4: A look at legislative progress: Reconciliation via wealth distribution.
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