18 July 2008 Iraq plans to push ahead with development of oil fields in the Nassiriyah area of southern Iraq in the next few years in order to achieve the 100,000 barrels per day of production set as the benchmark for establishing a regional oil company, Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani says. The company would be similar to the one recently announced for Missan, also in the south. “We are speeding…
Tag: KRG
Iraq Punishes Oil Firms With KRG Deals
16 January 2008 Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani has followed up on threats to punish companies that sign deals with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) by canceling the memoranda of understanding (MOU) some had inked with his ministry, a ministry source told International Oil Daily from Baghdad Tuesday. This is the first concrete step toward depriving them of any future deals with Baghdad. Al-Shahristani had persistently told companies that Baghdad…
Sunnis, Shiites Ink Fragile Pact Against Kurds
15 January 2008 Sunni, Shiite and independent lawmakers came together in Baghdad Sunday to sign a pact that, for the first time, issued a collective Sunni-Shiite demand for central control over oil resources and criticized the Kurds for their go-it-alone stance in signing oil deals. Signatories to the statement of common understanding included the political wing of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, the secular Iraqi National List of former Prime…
Iraq: China’s Breakthrough
29 August 2008 China this week became the first country since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein to clinch an oil deal with Iraq, by reviving the first of a series of contracts signed by the previous Iraqi regime under new terms dictated by new realities. The service contract for development of the Al-Ahdab field, which includes a mix of old production sharing elements and new service contract terms, sets a…