Plus:
*Shell responds to activist letter: increased profits not directly tied to Iraq war
*Iraq oil official confirms $2.5B for two-year deals with Big Oil
*Iraq oil, 5 years later
*Iraq Oil Ministry officials in New Orleans to observe MMS sale
*Iraq museum won’t open when repaired; smuggling artifacts funds insurgency
*Much, much more…
Gen. David Petraeus is calling on “large Western corporations” to invest in Iraq’s energy sector as Iraq looks outside to boost oil, gas and power production, Ben Lando reports for United Press International.
Petraeus, who as commander of Multi-National Force-Iraq overseas all coalition troops there, said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki asked him to convey the message to companies. …
Petraeus’ spokesman would not tell United Press International which companies the general had called.
“We have made some initial inquiries on (Iraq’s) behalf,” said U.S. Army Col. Steven Boylan. “Rest assured it would be companies that have the capability and reach to take on projects of the size and scope that Iraq needs to continue to progress forward.” …
“Sometimes to get the ball rolling it takes a senior leader to engage other senior leaders in the corporate world to have a discussion” on the realities of security in Iraq, Boylan said. Boylan added it’s part of the U.S. effort to help Iraq’s government build its capacity. He said the level of security for these companies depends on the area of the country. …
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Shell has rejected accusations the increased price of oil, and thus profits, can be linked directly to the Iraq war, Ben Lando reports for UPI. In a letter to the advocacy group Consumers for Peace, the company also said it won’t transfer the so-called war profits to a special fund as the organization requested.
The Iraqi government is expected to pay up to $2.5 billion to five top oil companies to increase the country’s oil output by nearly a quarter, Randi Fabi and Ahmed Rasheed report for Reuters. Thamir Ghadhban, energy adviser to Iraq’s prime minister, said he expected the contracts, which would add 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) to current production of 2.27 million bpd, would be signed by early next month.”There is a rough estimate that it could cost about $400 to $500 million per field,” he said in an interview. “So a total could be up to between $2 (billion) and $2.5 billion over two years that should be paid by the government to companies.”
Regular Iraq Oil Report readers, I should point out, knew about this Monday when UPI’s Ben Lando reported a top State Dept. official confirmed the $2.5B in the budget. He also said the oil law is technically finished but held up by politics, and that Production Sharing Agreements will be signed for long term deals. An Iraqi Iraq oil expert sent Iraq Oil Report an email that Amb. Ries’ PSA predictions are grounded in anything but reality on the ground and below it.
Five years after the U.S.-led invasion, Iraq’s oil sector is at last pumping at the level it managed under Saddam Hussein, but it could take years to make further progress, Ahmed Rasheed and Simon Webb report for Reuters.
The 12th ministerial meeting of the countries of the Arab electric interconnection network, which comprises Libya, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq started on Tuesday in Tripoli, Afriquenligne reports. The body aims at following up the development of the electricity connection between the national grids of these countries and ways and means of promoting and consolidating exchanges through the connection of electricity lines of the parties concerned.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has asked a consortium of Korean builders, which is now conducting a social infrastructure construction project coupled with oil exploration in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, to participate in similar projects in southern Iraq, a legal advisor to the consortium said, the JoongAng Daily reports. Meanwhile, Korean builder SSangyong Engineering & Construction Co. said Tuesday (Mar. 18) that a consortium led by the builder plans to submit its proposals to build infrastructure to the Kurdistan Regional Government early next month, Korea.net News reports.
United Nations envoy likened the struggle between Kurds and Arabs for control of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq to a “ticking time bomb,” Caroline Tosh and Zaineb Ahmed report for the Institute for War & Peace Reporting. Analysts say political agreement must be reached to defuse escalating tensions over contested city’s status.
Iraq would need to pass its long-delayed oil and gas law to attract much-needed funds to enhance its oil industry, a Turkish company with oil investments in northern Iraq said Wednesday, Dow Jones Newswires reports.Orhan Duran, the general manager of Turkey’s Genel Enerji, said the Cukurova Group-owned company has invested nearly $200 million to drill six wells in a joint effort with Geneva-based Addax Petroleum. There is enough oil to make the venture profitable, but the oil cannot be exported before the central government passes the oil and gas law, Duran said.
Four officials of Iraq’s oil ministry are in New Orleans for an auction of federal offshore petroleum leases, the AP reports. The officials came to Wednesday’s sale of leases in the eastern Gulf of Mexico as part of a long-term effort for Iraq to improve management of its oil resources.
Society, Security & Politics
If you go to the trouble of organizing an Iraqi political reconciliation conference, it’s generally a bad sign if a number of key players don’t even show up, Paul Kiel writes for TPM Muckraker. The largest Sunni bloc, former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s party, and a prominent minority party of Shiites and Sunnis all boycotted the conference. No representatives of the insurgency (either Baathist or militia members) were there. Supporters of Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr walked out of the conference, as did a prominent Sunni tribal leader who’s been key to the so-called “Anbar Awakening.”
So why, exactly, did the U.S. invade Iraq five years ago this week? asks Jim Lobe of Inter Press Service.
The U.S. military’s use of organic forces in Iraq gives a sense of Iraqi solutions to Iraqi problems, but may also be a sign of a partnership of convenience, writes UPI’s Daniel Graeber.
Politics is a dirty business anywhere in the world, but Iraqi politics today rank among the most divisive. While much has been written about Iraq since 2003 — the early mistakes that continue to impede progress, the bitter rivalries that leave so many innocents dead, the roles of superpowers and neighbors — few observers have offered a far-sighted view of the state of affairs, Kathleen Ridolfo writes for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
The Kurdistan Regional Government is touting the visit by Vice President Cheney as a major step for the region.
Iraq’s National Museum, which has been closed since its antiquities were looted five years ago after the U.S.-led invasion, won’t reopen when a partial renovation is complete in a few months, Elena Becatoros reports for The Associated Press. Museum and government officials say the museum building will not be ready and they fear opening the collection to the public could draw attacks or renewed looting. In a separate article Becatoros writes smuggling is funding insurgent groups.
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so now general betrayus is pimpin’ for the Oil.
makin’ daddy cheney prouder than snot !!
damn good thang that the War Criminal, Illegal and Immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq was not about Oil.
Forbidden fields: Oil groups circle the prize of Iraq’s vast reserves
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5b24f674-f5e6-11dc-8d3d-000077b07658.html
Royal Dutch Shell has been quietly working with Iraq’s oil ministry over the past two years, advising it on how to increase the production of two oilfields. Under an agreement struck after the 2003 invasion, no one from the company, Europe’s largest oil group, has set foot in the troubled country; instead, monthly face-to-face meetings with the oil ministry have been held in Amman, the Jordanian capital, and weekly contact has been maintained by video-link.
The Shell-financed project – and the attention showered on Baghdad – appears to be paying off: Shell is now negotiating a technical support agreement in which it will be compensated for helping upgrade production of producing fields. The oil company will again set up a team outside Iraq, helping, among other things, to bring new equipment into the country and training Iraqis in its use.
Shell is one of several international oil companies – including British Petroleum and the USA groups ExxonMobil and Chevron – that have been tapping into Iraq’s oil industry by remote control.
But now, five years after the invasion, the oil groups are hoping to take their involvement in the country to a new level. Baghdad, desperate to increase oil production yet starved of investment, is starting to dangle what the companies have been after all along: a chance to develop and later explore what may be the world’s most promising untapped oil reserves. Indeed, as the companies gear up for technical support agreements, they are also registering to pre-qualify for the first bidding round of oil development contracts that are to be offered by Baghdad.
“The initial projects were done to work with the Iraqis, get a feeling for fields and build relationships and knowledge,” says one oil executive, speaking of the assistance projects provided so far.
With parts of the global oil industry threatened with nationalisation and much of the Middle East still closed to foreign ownership of reserves, access to Iraq, with the world’s third-largest oil reserves, has long been viewed as a huge prize. Although no decision has yet been made in Baghdad over the nature of the development or the eventual exploration contracts that will be on offer, Iraq could prove one of the rare countries in the region where companies will be allowed to claim reserves as their own.
Gen Petraeus is to be commended for getting involved with the big oil companies. Someone has to give them a warm and fuzzy that trying to help in Iraq won’t be throwing away money, ala Hugo Chavez’ Venezuela and that there is a reasonable expectation of earning a sizable profit for risking their capital and people. The more risk the more required reward. I was offended by the uninformed mental midgets who made the first three responses about Gen betrayus, war criminals and daddy Chenney being proud. I was against the war from the start and was appalled at how it was mismanaged. I also have willingly done two tours in Iraq and unlike some, I have am aware of the reality that AMERICA went to war in Iraq, not just the President, Mr. Chenney and the incompetent former (THANK GOD) Secretary of Defense. AMERICA will reap the consequences of this war in the coming decades and our enemies could care less whether we as individuals support the war or the president. We better continue to play the strength cards there because we already tried the weak “in denial” course and got our nose bloodied. If we want to try 9-11 again, we need only to keep on playing the house divided on the world stage and we will get what we deserve.
Baghdad, (not in the Palace)20 March. Thank you Bryan. One must not forget the umbrella economic effects of foreign investment upon small business. Although the focus is on technical development, training, and management capacity building, one has only to visit or work in the north to see economic change, in the smaller econmic enterprises, from the man who delivers the ice for the workers, to the man who makes and delivers the bread for them