A History of Waste

Iraq is struggling between the urge to become a regional – and eventually an international – player on the gas scene and the need to supply a domestic market whose demand for gas for power generation is expected to continue rising drastically. That urge is exacerbated by the KRG’s ability to conclude swift deals to export gas regardless of whether such deals – which, like exporting oil, would require state to state agreements to export gas via Turkey – will materialise or not.

The Iraqi oil ministry has dropped the option to export oil it had offered to international oil companies bidding in its third bid round to develop three gas fields, after realising that that option is unrealistic in view…

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3rd Licensing Round . Akkas . bid round . gas consumption . gas contracts . gas exports . gas fields . gas flaring . gas map . gas production . KRG . Mansouriyah . oil ministry . oil production . power generation . power plants . RWE . Shell . Siba . Somo The View from Baghdad

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 three domes though it had numerous wells drilled. The others are the Baba and Avanah domes which have been producing for very long decades. The last time the Iraqi oil ministry and North Oil Co (NOC), which has been operating the field so far, were involved in Khurmala was in 2004…

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Avanah Dome . Avrasia . Baba Dome . crude processing . drilling . early production facility . Erbil . Erbil refinery . Hawrami . iraq oil . Kalak refinery . Kar Group . Khurmala . Kirkuk . KRG . Kurdistan . MNR . NOC . oil ministry . pipelines . production . Sheikh Baz Karim . Somo . wells The View from Baghdad

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 40 companies working in exploration and production, and a large number of service providers to go with that. They all have their individual contracts, and minimum obligations under production sharing contracts that they signed. There are 10-12 oil rigs in operation at the moment. There are 4-5 seismic crews active…

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Ashti Hawrami . auction . Barham Salih . Basrah . Bazyan refinery . constitution . DFI . DNO . Dohuk . elections . exports . fuel oil . hydrocarbon law . Iran . iraq oil . Kalak refinery . Kar Group . Kirkuk . KRG . KRG hydrocarbon law . KRG model contract . Mosul . naphtha . NOC . Nouri al-Maliki . oil ministry . Opec . production . production sharing . revenue sharing . Rumaila . service contracts . Shahristani . SOC . Suleimaniya . Taqtaq . Tawke . topping plants The Interview

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