Watering the Oil Fields

Iraq is set to witness a few firsts when it comes to how oil fields have been and are being developed around the world. After all, at no time in the history of the industry has so many oil fields of this size been developed all at once in such a short time span. One of the major firsts will no doubt be the Common Seawater Supply Facility (CSSF) which will aim to process up to 15 million barrels per day of raw seawater from the Mideast Gulf in order to provide some 12 million b/d of treated water to be injected in fields in southern Iraq as they are developed. That makes it the biggest such project in the…

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1st bid round . 2nd bid round . bidding results . BP . CNOOC . common seawater supply facility . CSSF . drilling . ENI . Exxon . field development . Gharraf . Halfaya . Majnoon . Mideast Gulf . Missan . oil fields . oil ministry . Petronas . pipelines . rigs . Rumaila . seawater . service contracts . Shell . SOC . water cut . water flooding . water injection . West Qurna . Zubair The View from Baghdad

2nd Bid Round Model Contract (DPSC)

Development & Production Service Contract

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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 contracts might be challenged by a future government if it’s not led by the same party that legalized them?

A: I expect any new government that will formed in the coming months to accept the signed contracts and continue with their implementation. I don’t think there is any risk there related to…

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1st bid round . 2nd bid round . cash flow . decline rate . elections . exports . garraf . gas . Haditha . Halfaya . INOC . IOCs . K3 . Kirkuk . KRG . Kurdistan . LNG . Main Pay . Majnoon . Midland Oil Co . Mishrif . MOC . NOC . oil and gas law . oil ministry . parliament . peak oil . pipelines . plateau . production . PSA . ratification . recovery rates . refineries . remuneration . results . Rumaila . service contracts . Shahristani . Shura council . SOC . Somo . Syria . terminals . thamir al-Ghadhban . Turkey . West Qurna . western desert . Zubair The Interview

The State Partners

Iraq’s oil ministry did well in choosing different companies to represent the state stake in the consortia awarded contracts to develop oil fields. Unlike the old days when the state oil marketing organization (Somo) was considered the de-facto state partner, including in five oil deals signed before the 2003 toppling of the previous regime (two production sharing contracts with CNPC and Lukoil and three exploration contracts with PetroVietnam, ONGC and Pertamina), different representatives now sit on the management committees of each field as holders of the 25% government share in each consortium.

Somo was the state partner on the BP-led consortia that signed the Rumaila deal. Missan Oil Co (MOC) represents the state on the consortia developing the Majnoon and Zubair…

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1st bid round . 2nd bid round . Badra . consortium . contracts . garraf . Gharraf . Halfaya . IDC . IOEC . JMC . Majnoon . MOC . Najmah . NOC . oil ministry . Qayarah . Rumaila . SOC . Somo . state partner . West Qurna . Zubair The View from Baghdad