Iraq Oil Report

Plus:
*Iraq oil production drops in April
*Companies with KRG deals see boost
*Oil pipeline security contract under fraud scrutiny
*Iraq Press Roundup
*Turkish-Iraq relations improve on Kurd meetings
*Much, much more…

Iraq has asked major international oil companies to submit their final contract proposals to boost production at the country’s largest oil fields after several rounds of talks in the Jordanian capital, Amman, since the beginning of this year, people close to the Iraqi Oil Ministry have said, Dow Jones Newswires reports.

Protracted talks between the Ministry and Shell, BP, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Total, Anadarko and BHP Billiton have apparently ended. The Ministry awaits the proposal. One issue that has remained, Iraq Oil Report is told, has been exactly how Iraq will pay the companies, who will sign 2-year Technical Support Contracts transferring technology, training and equipment to Iraq in an effort to increase production on six key oil fields by 100,000 barrels per day each. On the table apparently is oil in lieu of cash, but that would have to clear the international body charged with overseeing transparency of Iraq’s oil income which assures no creditors attach claims to Iraqi funds.

Iraq’s Oil Ministry says oil exports in April dropped by more than two million barrels because of fighting with Shiite militiamen, The Associated Press reports. The ministry says that oil exports stood at 57.06 million barrels for April, down from 59.4 million the month before.

Dana Gas is currently implementing a major integrated gas project in Iraq’s Kurdistan region on a fast-track basis in a record time of just one year, in a 50:50 joint venture partnership with Crescent Petroleum, at a combined investment of $650 million, according to a company statement. The project, which involves gas development, production, processing and pipeline construction, is the largest private sector energy project in Iraq, and is already over 80% complete. First gas production from the project is on target for the middle of this year, building up to a production of 300 million cubic feet per day by the year-end, approximately twice the Company’s current production in Egypt.

WesternZagros shares rose 12 per cent as the most active TSX Venture Exchange issue Friday after the Calgary-based oil and gas developer reported progress on its exploration work in the Kurdish region of Iraq, The Canadian Press reports. WesternZagros noted late Thursday that it spudded its initial well, Sarqala-1, on May 8 “without any serious safety or security incidents.”

Companies working on Iraq reconstruction have been accused of padding their profits through an insurance scam, leading to a criminal probe and hurried changes in the way many contracts are handled by the U.S. Army, according to internal military documents obtained by The Associated Press. Alarms went off shortly after two companies were selected in mid-March by the Joint Contracting Command in Iraq to design and build a security network for an oil pipeline running from the town of Bayji to Baghdad, according to Corps of Engineers e-mail traffic.

Iraq has agreed to a 179 million euro ($275 million) contract with General Electric Co to buy eight natural gas-powered generators, the Iraqi government’s spokesman said, Reuters reports.

For many months, I heard that the Ministry of Electricity was planning to ration power in Baghdad by giving each family 10 amperes of electricity, or a bit more depending on how many people lived in a houseUsama Redha writes for the Los Angeles Times’ Baghdad blog.. The idea was to attach a circuit breaker at the top of the electricity poles so people could not mess with their allotted share of amperes and there would be more to go around. …

A week later, the power in my house went out. I immediately went to Haider, who by now had become famous in the neighborhood for turning people’s power back on. In fact, he had begun charging for the service: $2 each time he was asked to fix someone’s electricity by fiddling with the circuit box.
Haider immediately came over with his stick. Like a circus acrobat, he climbed a wall close to the electricity pole and began using his stick to try to open the box holding the circuit breaker. For some reason, he could not get the box open. Finally, he gave up and told me I’d have to do things the official way: by visiting the area maintenance unit and asking them to come out and fix the power. …

I walked home in despair, thinking they never would come. But three hours later, workers showed up to fix my problem. They called me a troublemaker because I had visited the maintenance office three times. But at least they turned my power back on.

Security, Society & Politics

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

The Sadrists of Basra and the Far South of Iraq: The Most Unpredictable Political Force in the Gulf’s Oil-Belt Region?, a background paper on internal rivalries within the Sadrist movements, and how US policy could affect Muqtada al-Sadr’s strategies in the future, by Reidar Visser, editor of the Iraq-focused website Historiae.org and research fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs.

Only days after a landmark meeting with Iraqi Kurdish officials in Baghdad, Turkey’s special envoy to Iraq, Murat Özçelik, traveled to the Iraqi capital again for further talks yesterday, Today’s Zaman reports, which is being described by Ankara as part of an “ongoing normalization” of bilateral relations with the neighboring country.

Turkey appears to be using a two-pronged approach in its continuing efforts to drive the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) from its refuges in northern Iraq. Following raids and incursions by Turkish land forces, Turkey’s air force is now driving home points being made in meetings with Iraqi and Kurdish Iraqi leaders, Giray Sadik writes in The Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Focus.

A Kurdish lawmaker Tuesday said Baghdad is so divided over a constitutional provision concerning the legal status of Kirkuk that it won’t address the issue, UPI reports.

Experts urge power-sharing for Kirkuk but Kurds in no mood to give up on demand for referendum on province’s fate, Mariwan Hama-Saeed reports for the Institute for War & Peace Reporting.Kurds should explore the possibility of a power-sharing agreement for Kirkuk because the competing claims of the province’s communities will not be resolved through a referendum over its future, several international experts told a Washington conference at the weekend. But Kurdish participants at the gathering in the US capital warned that a ballot over whether Kirkuk is governed by the Kurdistan region or central government, as required by Article 140 of the constitution, was the only way forward for the province – and that failure to hold one would be disastrous.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials look to turn over security operations to Iraqi forces in Kirkuk as reconstruction takes place of security details with al-Qaida on the run, UPI reports.

The head of a consortium of Iraqi aid groups appealed to international donors to help displaced Iraqis and called on Baghdad to do better in helping its own, UPI reports.

Kurdistan Regional Government Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani received an honorary Doctor of Public Service degree from Washington & Jefferson College in Pennsylvania, according to a KRG release.

American and Iraqi military engineers have completed work on a float bridge that spans the Tigris River and helps reopen a key route between Beiji and Kirkuk, Stars and Stripes reports.

Chairman of the Chambers of Commerce in Russia, Yevgeeny Primakov, and Chairman of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Iraq’s Kurdistan province, Dara Al-Khayyat, signed a memorandum of understanding to establish economic ties and attract Russian companies, Iraq Directory reports.

Journalistic Freedom Observatory (JFO) in Iraq announced on Monday the launch of a blacklist encompassing the names of those who directly attack journalists, or order their guards to do so, VOI reports.

Iraqi citizens, local leaders and a representative from the Ministry of Education attended a ceremony marking the completion of a girls’ school in Mahmudiyah, UPI reports.

The KRG’s Commission on Violence against Women, chaired by Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani, yesterday decided to create monitoring boards to ensure that the region’s laws to protect women are upheld and enforced in courts, according to a KRG statement.

America in Iraq

Congress has heard from politicians, pundits, and generals, but not, up to this point, from the average boots-on-the-ground soldier. On May 15th, Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) and the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) begin the process with Winter Soldier on the Hill. Nine members of IVAW testified before the CPC about rules of engagement, the killing and abuse of civilians, the use of drop weapons, and the true consequences of the “surge.”

Immediately after the hearing, Sgt. Matthis Chiroux announced he would not deploy to Iraq, Agence France-Press reports.

Former State Department officials, appearing Monday at a hearing aimed at influencing Senate consideration of the Bush administration’s pending request for supplemental war funds, excoriated the department for allowing rampant corruption in Iraqi ministries and failing to back an Iraqi official who tried to attack it, Dan Friedman reports for Congress Daily. “The Department of State’s actual policies not only contradicted the anti-corruption mission but indirectly contributed to and has allowed corruption to fester at the highest levels of the Iraqi government,” said Arthur Brennan, a former New Hampshire state judge who served briefly as director of the State Department’s Office of Accountability and Transparency at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

Anne Flaherty has more for AP.

Paul Kiel at TPM Muckraker raises the question as to why the U.S. government is holding up the asylum request from Judge Radhi al-Radhi, who until fleeing Iraq late last year was the top corruption investigator there.

Iraq’s Ambassador in Washington, Mr. Samir Al-Sumaida’ie, met with Senator Barack Obama, a prominent Democratic candidate for the U.S presidency. During the meeting they discussed the situation in Iraq on various levels, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said, Voices of Iraq news agency reports.

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