West Qurna, Rumaila & Water Injection

I refer to your informative interview with Dhiya Jaafar, D.G. of Southern Oil Company (SOC), and would Like to share with you the following brief comments. – West Qurna-1 Mishrif reservoir seems to be over produced and hence there is a need to revise the production policy in this field with a view to minimizing pressure decline by reducing production from now until water availability is secured. I do not know…

What’s Behind Iraq’s Reserves Revision

While one cannot exclude strategic motive to announce the reserves increase at this time, there is certainly room for doing so. Let us hope that the MoO is embarking on a policy of enlightening the industry, the public and the concerned Iraqi technocrats. The MoO statement while informative to the public, it is short of the necessary elaboration to be more meaningful to the oil technocrats. However, in my opinion Iraq oil reserves, as the…

KRG And The Oil & Gas Law

The draft oil and gas law has been with the Council of Representatives since 2007 and was followed later by the INOC draft law. There were several reasons behind the legislative stalemate, but the main one is the request of the Kurdish parliamentary block to postpone the debate on oil legislation until an accord is reached regarding the pending issues in the oil and gas law. The main pending issues…

IOCs and the Future of Basrah

I believe the governor’s views are quite right, very positive and give assurances to the IOCs who signed contracts to develop oil fields in the Basrah governorate. The message is clear to the IOCs to engage with the local community and make an effort to reach out. It’s true that, and in spite of the monopolistic and concessionary nature of the old contracts IOCs had with Iraq, Basrah people did…