Refining for Politics

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…

Pumping Up Khurmala

Erbil – It seems that Baghdad and Erbil have reached a tacit agreement on how to divide the contested oil fields between the region and the rest of the country. Or that’s at least what seems to be happening in Khurmala Dome, one of three major domes making up the giant Kirkuk oil field. Khurmala Dome, which has de-facto become the Khurmala oil field, is the least developed of the…

Ashti Hawrami

The Kurdistan Regional Government’s minister of natural resources, Ashti Hawrami, spoke to Ruba Husari in Erbil late July on the latest developments in Kurdistan’s upstream and downstream sector, the smuggling controversy, differences with Baghdad over crude exports and the fate of the federal hydrocarbon law. Q. What’s the status of the different contracts signed so far with the KRG and how is work progressing on the ground? A. We have…