Pioneer CNPC

Wasit Province – About 2,000 Chinese workers are about to descend on Al-Ahdab oil field next month to start work on the construction of the central production facility, engineer Ahmad Abdul Redha, the chief of Al-Ahdab section at North Oil Co (NOC) tells me during a tour of the fortress camp that CNPC’s subsidiary, Al-Waha Petroleum, built just 15 km to the west of Kut. With five rigs on the…

Electricity Woes

Baghdad – Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, while standing by his resigning minister of electricity Karim Wahid, blamed the latter for raising people’s expectations and promising quick solutions to the electricity problems. The truth is, he said, the situation will not improve until the projects to build new power plants and install turbines contracted from GE and Siemens are done within two years. But would they? Maliki is committing the…

Gas Challenge

The most recent bid round launched this month for the three gas fields of Akkas, Mansouriah and Siba, promises to be challenging for both sides; the Iraqi oil ministry and the international oil companies, not least because it involves a third party: the electricity sector. The non-associated gas to be produced from the three fields, estimated collectively at a minimum of 700 MMcf/d to 900 MMcf/d will be allocated as…