Iraq could export more crude from its southern al-Basra Oil Terminal if there was development onshore of key infrastructure, terminal manager Shukour Taha says. He insists the massive planned increase in exports will be able to reach market through the oil platform he is in charge of.
"Any time, anyhow, any minute you will see the workers and manager and the South Oil Company loading the oil," said Taha, in an interview in his oil platform office, painted a sky blue that's in contrast to the …
When Ali al-Obaidi was sent to take over the Beiji refinery in 2007, he estimated $1 billion was being siphoned by smugglers. U.S. and Iraqi officials said much of that funded the operations of insurgents.
More than two years have passed and output at the country's largest refinery has increased and smuggling from the facility drastically down.
Instead of receiving the accolades Obaidi gets arrest warrants and death threats.
Obaidi was so pessimistic about what this means for Iraq's…
The benchmark for foreign investment in Iraq's oil sector – and, for that matter, any energy sector in the world – is whether it would see the entry of the world's most profitable oil company on record.
And Exxon Mobil has. It is the only American company to take an operator's role in one of the 10 deals the Iraqi Oil Ministry signed with foreign firms.
Along with junior partner Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon will turn the 8.7 billion barrel West Qurna Phase 1 from a super-giant producing le…