Iraq’s failure to attract investments for its four refineries offered to private investors after more than two years since their launch should invite a rethink of the investment model. Luckily this rethink has started and Iraq’s oil ministry is now on course to change the business model from a BOT (build-own-operate) to one that is based on a fixed fee per barrel. This is a welcome change for the potential…
Tag: Karbala
Iraq Gets Down to Work on Refineries
21 July 2008 Iraq’s Daura refinery should commission a new 70,000 barrel per day crude distillation unit at the end of the year, raising capacity to 160,000 b/d, Midland Refineries Director-General Dathar al-Khashab told International Oil Daily last week. It will be the first addition to the refinery, near Baghdad, since the US-led invasion in 2003. A contract for a second crude distillation unit, awarded like the first one to…
The Big Unknowns
18 October 2002 In 1979, the same year the US lost Iran and its oilfields to the Islamic revolution, Saddam Hussein was sworn in as president of Iraq. Twenty-three years later, the US appears poised to engage in another Mideast adventure designed to topple him. But there are a huge number of unknowns, all or any of which could turn the mission into a debacle. For Western diplomats, one of…