Iraq Oil Report

Plus:
*Iraq in talks with Anadarko consortium for Luhais field contract
*Dana Gas exec talks plans for KRG and beyond
*Water Minister plans dams
*Oil revenue for displaced Iraqis bill takes shape
*Much, Much More….

Iraq’s oil production could reach unprecedented record of three million barrels per day by the end of 2008, according to Iraq’s Minister of Industry, Fawzi Hariri, the Kuwait News Agency reports. “The Iraqi Ministry of Oil’s target is to reach three million barrels and we believe with some maintenance of existing oil producing wells and the combination of the oil produced in Kurdistan and local wells, we can reach three million barrels by the end of 2008,” Hariri said.

Iraq is in advanced talks for an oil service contract with a consortium of Vitol, Anadarko and Dome to boost output by 100,000 barrels per day at its Luhais oilfield, industry sources said, Simon Webb reports for Reuters. The contract is the sixth in a batch of short-term oil service contracts worth around $500 million each that Iraq wants to sign with international oil companies in June.

Dana Gas executive director for upstream, Ahmed Rashid Al Arbeed, talks with Emirates Business about the company’s activities in the UAE, Egypt, Northern Iraq and other areas as well as its “gas city” plans in the emirates and other countries.

As Baghdad grapples with Sadr City, Iraqi Kurdistan busily builds ‘Dream City’, Sam Dagher reports for The Christian Science Monitor. The Kurdistan Regional Government is briskly pursuing oil and gas contracts and economic development, a drive that is chafing Iraq’s central government in Baghdad.

Iraq’s Minister of Water Resources, Dr. Abdul-Lateef Jamal Rasheed, has revealed future plans to generate more electricity by water power, saying that a dam building program is being planned by the ministry to raise total capacity to 2,900MW, IDP reports.

Iraqi legislators have urged the government to set aside part of the country’s oil revenues to help Iraqi refugees, Alaa al-Tamimi reports for Azzaman. In a hearing attended by Deputy Prime Minister Burham Saleh, the deputies said there were more than four million Iraqi refugees, inside and outside the country, and as Iraqi citizens they were entitled to help.

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has said it is concerned about funding levels for its programmes for Iraqi refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Iraq. On 29 April UNHCR said it had received just under half of the US$261 million it had requested in January to be able to assist Iraqi IDPs and refugees abroad.

Baghdad’s crumbling roads, burst sewage pipes and chronic water shortages are casualties of war that get little attention amid the daily litany of gunfights, bombs and bloodletting in Iraq, Tim Cocks reports for Reuters. As summer approaches, the city is facing an acute shortage of drinking water despite the efforts of officials like Sadiq Shumari, its director of water services.

Iraq’s Consul General in Mashhad Haitham Shafiq Qasem al-Haid says the volume of trade between Iran and Iraq reached $1.5b in 2007, Press TV reports.

U.S. forces are investigating two contracts to build schools in northern Iraq that required bathroom fixtures to be supplied by Iran. The new elementary and middle schools built in Erbil were also authorized by a South Korean member of coalition forces, against U.S. contracting rules, but officials say this practice has been stopped and corrected, Ben Lando reports for United Press International. The contracts for both the Sarwaran Primary School and Binaslawa Middle School, in the capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, “required that the bathroom fixtures be produced in Iran, which is currently under United States trade sanctions,” according to two recent reports by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.

U.S. reconstruction officials said microgrants supplied to the Iraqi fish industry generate enough momentum to restart the struggling sector, UPI reports.

Iran recalled its ambassador to Iraq in protest of Baghdad’s support for a move by the United Arab Emirates to take ownership of three Persian Gulf islands, UPI reports.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered a halt Thursday to broadcasts from the al-Ahad radio station of Moqtada Sadr as residents flee escalating violence, UPI reports.

Suicides by veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could well top the combat deaths in the two conflicts, according to the top official of National Institute of Mental Health, Bob Brewin reports for Government Executive.

More than 43,000 U.S. troops found medically unfit were sent to Iraq and Afghanistan anyway, yet another sign of stress on the military, advocacy groups said, UPI reports.

The Iraq Press Roundup by UPI’s Hiba Dawood.

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