Bid Round Five

By tendering new blocks for exploration, all of them close to the border with either Iran or Kuwait, Iraq is trying to catch up on the effort to increase its oil and gas reserves that has been interrupted by two major wars with the two neighbors in 1980 and 1990. To convince international oil companies to participate in this round, the fifth since Iraq opened its oil sector to foreign…

Drilling Deep in Badra

Drilling in the Badra oil field in the east of Iraq is long and painful. The Iranians had this experience with first six wells drilled in their part of the shared oilfield in the past and now Russia’s Gazprom with its partners are laboring over the deep wells, having the same frustrating and sometimes disappointing experience as foreign operators who drilled on the other side of the border in recent…

What’s Next for Iraq’s Oil & Gas Industry

As the IOCs are moving now towards fulfilling the requirements of the rehabilitation and preliminary development plans of the first phase of the contracts of the mega projects starting to prepare enhanced and final development plans for the second phase and ramping up of production towards the PPTs, many discussions arose and opinions were expressed about the need, or otherwise, for revising the PPTs downwards, increasing the time allowed to…