10 September 2008 Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani has confirmed the former director-general of South Oil Co. (SOC), Jabbar al-Luaibi, as an advisor with the authority to oversee oil projects in southern Iraq, according to a ministerial order issued last week, a copy of which was obtained by International Oil Daily. Al-Luaibi was removed from his post in May and appointed special adviser in what analysts suspected was a power…
Tag: tribes
Power Struggle in South Iraq
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…
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…
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…