27 March 2007 The Iraqi government decided to renegotiate an old production sharing contract which had been signed by China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) to develop the 90,000 barrel per day Al-Ahdab oil field with the former Iraqi regime “for political and legal reasons” rather than retender, a senior Iraqi government official told International Oil Daily late last week. CNPC officials traveled to Baghdad earlier this month for a first…
Tag: Ahdab
Iraq: Splits Dog Oil Law
9 March 2007 Having waited so long for a law offering the framework necessary to regularize and legitimize future investments in Iraq’s vast oil resources, international firms itching to get their hands on the biggest Mideast opportunity in decades now find consensus — perhaps the most important ingredient of all — lacking. Iraqis are divided over the legitimacy of signing contracts while the country is wracked by chaos, and some…
Baghdad’s Oil Priorities
1 June 2007 Iraq has missed a May 31 deadline to approve the country’s first hydrocarbon law since regime change in 2003 — but in Iraqi terms, that’s no big deal. Every other deadline pushed by the US administration in the past four years for rebuilding the country’s institutions has also been missed. But for Iraq’s dilapidated oil sector, the delay is pushing back some initiatives that could provide a…
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…