Reserves Politics

Iraq’s newly announced proven oil reserves figure of 143.1 billion barrels is most likely closer to the reality than the old one of 115 billion bbls minus what has been produced since the last revision, which is put at 5 billion bbls. But the question is how did Iraq arrive at this magic number without new exploration or new discoveries and while 3-D seismic surveys for the southern oil fields…

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…

Iraq Votes

The polls are closed and it wasn’t the carnage some were expecting it to be. True, it is quite disturbing to wake up to the sound of mortars on elections day. But that’s not surprising, this is Baghdad after all. Bottom line, Iraq has voted for the second full-term parliament since 2003 despite the threats, the intimidations, the chaos, the interference, and the “de-baathification” saga by the “not so” independent…