Pumping Up Khurmala

Erbil – It seems that Baghdad and Erbil have reached a tacit agreement on how to divide the contested oil fields between the region and the rest of the country. Or that’s at least what seems to be happening in Khurmala Dome, one of three major domes making up the giant Kirkuk oil field. Khurmala Dome, which has de-facto become the Khurmala oil field, is the least developed of the…

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…

Dathar Al-Khashab

Dathar Al-Khashab, Director General of Midland Refinery Co, gives his take on Iraq’s planned refining investment conference scheduled for June 26, in an interview with Ruba Husari in Baghdad. Q: Do you expect Iraq to succeed in getting foreign investors to build any of the four refineries on offer? A: It is very hard to get investors to invest in any refineries anywhere, not just in Iraq because margins are…

Refining Dilemma

Oil minister Hussein al-Shahristani says Iraq will become an exporter of refined products within a few years. That’s a very optimistic assessment of the status of the Iraqi refining sector. True, Iraq has four new grass roots refineries with a combined capacity of 740,000 barrel per day offered to private investors. But it still has a long way to go before any investor jumps in and spends billions on building…