Plus:
*More on the Shell gas deal
*German, UAE and Iran investors eye southern refineries
*Alive in Baghdad: Selling Fuel
*Kidnapping in the NOC
Iraq won’t award temporary oilfield services contracts to international companies before a bidding round aimed at bringing in foreign expertise to boost crude production, Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said, Bloomberg News reports. Iraq will instead go ahead with new long-term exploration contracts before approving a new energy law, he said….
Iraq’s Cabinet approved an initial gas agreement between the Oil Ministry and Royal Dutch Shell to invest in a joint venture to tap natural gas in southern Iraq, a government statement said.
The agreement calls for establishing a joint venture between the state-run South Oil Co. and Shell to exploit the fields, the statement added without any other details.
Shell is expected to invest US$3 billion to US$4 billion over five years to gather at least 500-600 million cubic feet of flared gas …
The Iraqi Oil Ministry says that oil exports in July inched up to 58.8 million barrels — a 0.7 percent increase from the previous month, the AP reported.
The statement says the barrel was sold at an average price of $113.8 and yielded $6.692 billion. June’s price stood at $123 a barrel.
The statement adds that 46.9 million barrels were exported through the country’s south and 11.9 million barrels from the north, from Turkey’s port of Ceyhan. The oil was uploaded by 19 international oil c…
The long-suffering bill that would govern Iraq’s oil industry and divvy up oil wealth has been stalled more than a year, bogged down in political squabbling and symbolic of problems rippling below the surface here despite success on the security front.
Just last year, U.S. and Iraqi officials repeatedly announced that passage of the oil bill was imminent. The bill was seen as crucial to laying the groundwork for long-term security and political reconciliation in Iraq, since it would guarantee…
Iraq will sign a $1.2 billion oil service contract with China to replace a production-sharing deal agreed under Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi newspaper, an-Noor said, quoting oil minister Hussain al-Shahristani.
The oil minister is travelling to China at the end of this month to discuss the deal, which was orginally signed in 1997 between Iraq and the China National Petrolium Company, Ahmed Rasheed writes for Reuters.
“We have held talks with (the Chinese) for a year, and the terms of the dea…
Oil negotiations between a handful of foreign companies and the government here appear stalled, setting back once again efforts to open up Iraqi oil fields to international companies, writes Gina Chon for The Wall Street Journal.
Oil Ministry officials had said they hoped to sign contracts by the end of June. That deadline came and went without a deal. Now, talks with major oil companies, such as Royal Dutch Shell PLC, BP PLC and Exxon Mobil Corp., appear to have hit new snags.
Iraq has term…
The Iraqi government is planning to limit no-bid contracts being negotiated with several major oil companies to one year to avoid overlap with longer-term deals expected to be signed next June, the Associated Press reported.
The no-bid contracts have sparked controversy because several major Western firms have been involved in the discussions. There are concerns that granting such contracts to Western oil companies could feed perceptions that U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein to grab t…
Bush administration officials knew that a Texas oil company with close ties to President Bush was planning to sign an oil deal with the regional Kurdistan government that ran counter to American policy and undercut Iraq’s central government, a Congressional committee has
The conclusions were based on e-mail messages and other documents that the committee released Wednesday, James Glanz and Richard A. Oppel Jr. write for The New York Times.
Steven Mufson with the Washington Post writes th…
Energy expert Luay Jawadal-Khatteeb calls Shell’s associated gas deal “unethical,” explains why Iraq needs a gas master plan that will meet domestic needs first.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq addresses the criticism he’s received for attempting to enter Iraq’s oil sector.
The former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq runs a consulting firm focused on Iraq investments and has just been named to Norwegian oil firm DNO, whose Kurdish projects have stoked controversy. He talks to Iraq Oil Report.
