KRG Contracts Conundrum

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced earlier this month that the oil ministry approved the two production sharing contracts for the Tawke and Taqtaq fields, signed before the constitution was drafted, for a variety of reasons which to his mind justify the legalization by Baghdad. A day after Mr Maliki was interviewed, the Kurdish Prime Minister Barham Saleh was quoted as saying that “all contracts” signed by the KRG received…

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…

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…