Shell opens secret Baghdad office

The Shell-Iraq gas deal is not a production sharing contract – heck, it’s not even a deal. It’s a signing of an agreement that the two sides will conduct due diligence and then perhaps make a deal to set up a joint venture company between the international oil giant and Iraq’s South Gas Co., as Ben Lando reports for United Press International. (NOTE: UPI requires registration to read stories now, though it remains free.)

There are plenty of news stories that mislabel the Shell announcement as PSCs and other models. To be sure, however, there is little in the way of transparency both of how we got to this stage, and what's to come in the future in terms of deal details.