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…

Thamir Al-Ghadhban

Thamir al-Ghadhban, former Iraqi Minister of Oil and Chairman of the Advisory Commission at the Prime Minister’s office, gives his take on the latest developments in Iraq’s oil sector and analyses future trends in an interview in Baghdad with Ruba Husari. Q: How do you expect a new government following the March 7 legislative elections to deal with the signed contracts? Is there a risk that the legality of those…

A Mis-match of Infrastructure?

Issam al-Chalabi writes: “Iraq is a landlocked country with a narrow opening to the Gulf. That by itself has been the cause of many conflicts with neighbouring Iran and Kuwait, meaning that, in addition to utilizing its Gulf outlet, Iraq must send oil through other neighboring countries to provide additional and alternative export outlets. This again has been a source of political conflicts and confrontations ever since the commercial discovery…