Early questions for potential powerhouse

BAGHDAD - There will be no movement on the draft national oil company law at least until Parliament returns from its Ramadan break, and with the many items on the legislative body’s agenda – the bill to ban smoking notwithstanding – and its historically slow movements, there will be plenty of time to fine-tune legislation seen as key to Iraq’s oil future.

Early readings of the law, which was given to Iraq Oil Report on condition it not be published, show it as a possible return of the state company that oversaw Iraq’s oil growth of the 1960s, 1970s and, despite the war, the 1980s. The law would repeal the 1964 act initially creating the Iraqi National Oil Co. (INOC) as well as the 1987 decision by Saddam Hussein to disband INOC.