China, Iraq Offer Concessions to Seal Oil Deal

29 August 2008 China National Petroleum Corp.’s (CNPC) new 20-year service contract to develop Iraq’s Al-Ahdab oil field — the first oil deal signed since Saddam Hussein’s overthrow in 2003 — preserves some of the choicer elements of its 1997 production sharing agreement (PSA). But both sides offered concessions in a bid to bring the negotiations launched last year to a conclusion, Iraqi sources involved in the talks told International…

Iraq Cracks Down in Basrah, Imposes State of Emergency

1 June 2006 Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Wednesday declared a month-long state of emergency in Basrah city, in an attempt to rescue the southern oil region from a power struggle among Shiite factions. “We hope after this month that we will come back to Basrah and see that the situation has improved a lot,” al-Maliki told reporters after announcing the measure and after meeting with tribal leaders, political…

Iraq Awards Studies for Top Reservoirs

18 January 2005 Iraq’s oil ministry has awarded contracts for reservoir studies at its giant Kirkuk and Rumaila oil fields to UK major BP and UK-based Exploration Consultants Ltd. (ECL), a senior Iraqi official said Friday. Royal Dutch/Shell will also play a supporting role to the oil ministry on the Kirkuk study under a technical service agreement, the official added — which will include the Anglo-Dutch major financing that field’s…

Two Years On, Iraq Output Still Struggling

9 March 2005 Almost two years after the US-led war ousted the Baath regime, Iraq is still struggling to meet prewar production levels at its dilapidated oil fields. Iraq’s southern oil fields, which accounted for the majority of prewar production of 2.8 million barrels per day, are currently managing just 1.85 million b/d — and even this rate is causing great distress to reservoirs, Iraq’s interim Oil Minister Thamer al-Ghadban…