31 August 2007 British forces, in control of southern Iraq since 2003, are expected to complete their withdrawal from Basrah in September and redeploy to a desert airbase, having already exited most urban centers in the last year. The move is interpreted by some as a prelude to a full British military withdrawal from Iraq, and a fight for supremacy is already raging in Iraq’s oil heartland among competing political…
Tag: Amara
Iraq Focuses On Pilot Projects To Counter Big Field Declines
8 July 2005 Iraq’s South Oil Co. (SOC) is launching a handful of pilot production projects at oil fields in southern Iraq, in an attempt to compensate for declines at its large producing fields, according to local industry sources. The big-field problems have been exacerbated by a lack of funds for drilling new wells and working over existing wells, as well as delays in implementing water injection projects. The major…
Iraq Favors Transparent Process for Future Upstream Bidding
22 October 2003 Iraqi oil ministry officials favor open bidding for any future contracts for oil fields and exploration blocks, embracing both companies involved in previous negotiations and new contenders, mainly US majors for whom Iraq was off-limits. “We have proposals that we are formulating, but that still need to be submitted for approval by the oil minister and the political echelons in Iraq,” Natik al-Bayati, senior adviser at the…
Iraq: Who’s Working Where?
28 February 2003 In talking about possible war against Iraq, Bush administration officials insist that their main objective is not to get their hands on the country’s massive oil reserves. But post-war, fierce competition is almost bound to erupt between US oil firms that have been kept off-limits by the Iraqis, and those — including Russian, Asian, and European companies — that either have firm contracts with the current regime…