Iraq Oil Report

*But Iraq Oil Ministry says not so fast
*All Saddam-era oil deals canceled, to be up for bid
*Iraq to sign two-year deals with Big Oil in June
*Scattered Dreams: Iraq’s Refugees
*$1.5 M for Sadr City
*Iraq Press Roundup

Iraq’s Kurdish region leader said talks in Baghdad on key controversial issues, including the oil law, showed “positive … cooperation and progress,” United Press International reports. Nechirvan Barzani, prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, said in a statement the central and regional governments met in Baghdad “to discuss the mechanism of relations between our two bodies as partners in the governance of Iraq, the advancement of our political process and other various issues regarding the future of Iraq.”

This confirms a report last week by UPI’s Ben Lando that negotiations between the KRG and Baghdad are leading to reconciliation of those deals, though there is still plenty of roadblocks to be cleared.

Iraq’s Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani says the deals signed by the KRG are not valid, Marta Falconi reports for The Associated Press. “We do not recognize them,” al-Shahristani said. The draft law requires an open bidding process, and also would establish which foreign countries are eligible to work in Iraq, he said.

All of the oil deals signed by Saddam Hussein have been “canceled” and the companies must bid for the fields again, the Iraq Oil Ministry spokesman says. This appears to be a change in policy, as the ministry had said that four deals still carried legal weight and, although they’d have to be brought in line with the new law, would still be honored, UPI reports. Iraq had contracts with ONGC of India, CNPC of China, Pertamina of Indonesia and PetroVietnam that were considered valid and were reportedly under negotiation.

Shahristani said two-year support contracts with the world’s largest oil firms to boost production in five key fields by 100,000 barrels per day each won’t be signed until June, Reuters reports. He also said that the largest of Iraq’s producing oil fields, as well as the Akkas gas field, will be included in the fields up for bid this summer, but large discovered but not yet producing fields will not.

Italian energy giant Eni is considering investing in Iraq with the expected passage of new legislation on oil revenue distribution, Agence France-Press reports. “It will be possible … to sign contracts in a new legislative framework,” Eni CEO Paolo Scaroni was quoted as saying on the sidelines of an energy meeting in Rome.

Italian rig manufacturer Drillmec has won a $207m order to provide 17 drill rigs to the state-run Iraq Drilling Company, for work in the southern oil fields and the northern Kirkuk region, the Middle East Economic Digest reports.

Iraq’s Industry & Minerals Ministry signed two joint venture deals at a Dubai conference this week Trevor Lloyd-Jones reports for Business Intelligence Middle East. “We are making all of Iraq’s state-owned enterprises available for partnerships with the private sector,” Hariri said. Asked about whether the security situation was still at the early stages to enable the flow of investment to go ahead, the Minister said that the challenges within Iraq were still considerable, but on the other hand the rewards were sufficiently high to attract international companies.

War News Radio explores the crisis of internally and externally displaced Iraqis five years after the war began.

General David Petraeus, in testimony before US congressional committees last week, portrayed Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s late March offensive in Basra as a poorly planned effort that departed from what US officials had expected, Gareth Porter reports for Asia Times online. What Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, did not reveal is that Maliki was deliberately upsetting a Petraeus plan to put US and British forces into Basra for a months-long operation to eliminate the Mahdi Army from the city.

The civilian spokesman for Iraqi military operations aimed at securing Baghdad said the government set aside $1.5 million for basic services in Sadr City, UPI reports.

The Iraq Press Roundup, a recap of Iraq’s editorial pages by UPI’s Hiba Dawood.

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