Iraq Oil Report

Plus:
* Total, Shell confirm oil TSA talks over
* Baghdad energy conference postponed to December
* Alleged secret Defense Ministry torture prison found in Basra
* Alive in Baghdad: Shanasheel, Iraqi Traditional Architecture
* Much more

Iraq expects to sign a gas deal with Royal Dutch Shell within a year and negotiations to sign the deal will start soon, an Iraqi oil official said, Hassan Hafidh reports for Dow Jones Newswires. The Iraqi Oil Ministry needs to agree with Shell the terms of a joint venture in which Iraq’s South Gas Co. will possess 51% of the venture and Shell 49%, the official said.

Total confirms its negotiations to develop the West Qurna oil field under a short-term deal to increase production have been halted. “We are disappointed in not being able to successfully conclude these negotiations,” Total spokeswoman Lisa Wyler told The Associated Press in an e-mail, Sinan Salaheddin. “We are committed to working with the Ministry of Oil to consider further development opportunities within the oil and gas industry in Iraq.”

More on Iraq’s new oil deal prerogative by Andrew E. Kramer of The New York Times. The only new information for regular Iraq Oil Report readers is confirmation by oil companies that the short term deals were nixed and this from U.S. Senator Charles Schumer: “I’m glad the Iraqis heard our plea that to do this now would be bad for Iraq and bad for Iraqi-American relations,” Senator Schumer said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.

Schumer went on to tow the Bush administration line of demanding Iraq pass a hydrocarbons law, adding he’ll propose legislation that demands profits from any new Iraq oil deals go to reimburse U.S. reconstruction costs in Iraq.

For more on the genesis of congressional opposition to the deals, read the June 25 “Congress pressing Bush to block, reverse Iraq oil deals,” by United Press International’s Ben Lando.

A first-of-its-kind energy conference in Iraq has been postponed to December because of delays in construction of the new convention center, United Press International reports. Organizers of the Iraq Energy Expo and Conference, to be held at the new Baghdad International Airport Convention Center, announced the new dates of Dec. 3 to 5, adding they don’t think the delay will detract from the event.

Read what Iraqis read: the Iraq Press Roundup, by UPI’s Alaa Majeed.

The British Royal Navy entered Iraq’s only deepwater port in Umm Qasr for the first time since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, UPI reports.

Iraqi Parliament’s Human Rights Commission has found up to 200 malnourished and disease-stricken Iraqi detainees locked in a secret prison in the southern city of Basra, Mohammed Hamdoun reports for Azzaman. The commission’s spokesman, Amer Thamer, said many of the detainees bore signs of torture. He said the prison is operated by the Defense Ministry and none of the inmates has ever been tried or given access to legal assistance. “We put the blame for the horrific conditions of the inmates squarely on the Defense Ministry,” he said.

Iran supports the work of the United Nations toward safeguarding Iraqi sovereignty but calls for a more active role, the Iranian foreign minister said, UPI reports.

Kurdish lawmakers said they wanted reassurance from the United States that F-16s slated for sale to the Iraqi government would not be used against Iraqis, UPI reports.

Officials with the Iraqi Communist Party met with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad to discuss the long-term security deal with Washington, UPI reports.

The U.S. troop surge in Iraq brought positive security gains but did not ease the underlying turmoil among rival camps in Iraqi politics, UPI reports. An analysis released Wednesday by the research organization Center for American Progress, based in Washington, says the surge of U.S. troops failed in its primary goal of creating a representative Iraqi central government.

Plans by U.S. strategists in Iraq to hand over authority over the Sunni-led force Sons of Iraq to Baghdad stoke concern over the durability of sectarian calm, UPI reports.

Alive in Baghdad: Shanasheel, Iraqi Traditional Architecture

Iraqi society is quite proud of its different types of architecture and design. Their buildings have evolved and taken different shapes over Iraq’s history.

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