Abdul Karim Luaybi

Iraqi Oil Minister Abdul Karim Luaybi gives the latest on the draft Oil & Gas Law (OGL)  and the state of the dispute with Exxon Mobil over its signed contract with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in an interview with Iraq Oil Forum editor Ruba Husari in Baghdad.  (للنص العربي اضغط هنا) Q: You were expected to meet with the KRG’s Minister of Natural Resources Ashti Hawrami to agree a…

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…

Pioneer CNPC

Wasit Province – About 2,000 Chinese workers are about to descend on Al-Ahdab oil field next month to start work on the construction of the central production facility, engineer Ahmad Abdul Redha, the chief of Al-Ahdab section at North Oil Co (NOC) tells me during a tour of the fortress camp that CNPC’s subsidiary, Al-Waha Petroleum, built just 15 km to the west of Kut. With five rigs on the…

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…