IDC’s Success Story

Iraq Drilling Co (IDC) is back in force and seems on the way to turn itself into a success story by teaming up with the big ones. After the short setback following the failed joint venture with Mesopotamia Petroleum, it has finally found the magic formula to play the leading role in the gigantic drilling effort that will take place across the Iraqi oil fields over the next few years.

In the first drilling tender launched earlier this year for drilling in Rumaila oil field, IDC bid jointly with Schlumberger, the world’s largest oilfield services provider and together they won a contract to drill 21 new wells and carry out workover jobs on 23 wells. IDC will supply three of its…

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al-Ghadban . bids . drilling . drilling tenders . Gharraf . Halliburton . IDC . Iraq drilling company . Majnoon . Mesopotamia Petroleum . Najmah . OEC . oil ministry . pipelines . pumping stations . Qayarah . rigs . Rumaila . Schlumberger . Scop. . service contracts . Shahristani . tank farm . Weatherford . wells . West Qurna . workover . Zubair The View from Baghdad

Iraq Turns Spotlight on Natural Gas Projects as Shortages Bite

20 March 2008

The Iraqi oil ministry is tendering a contract to build a pipeline linking the Akkas gas field in northwest Iraq to the Syrian border with the aim of starting exports to Syria within a year of contract award, a senior Iraqi official said Wednesday.

Akkas was discovered in the late 1990s, and six wells were drilled there by a Syrian contractor before the US-led invasion in 2003. Under a first phase of development, Iraq’s State Co. for Oil Projects (Scop) hopes to send gas to Syria for processing according to a government-to-government agreement reached last year. Around 50 million cubic feet per day will be produced and exported in the first phase, Scop Director-General Falah al-Khawaja told International Oil…

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1st bid round . Akkas . contracts . Falah . flared gas . gas fields . gas processing . GE . Khawaja . Mansouriah . pipeline . Scop. . Shell . Syria . West Qurna . Zubair 2008

Iraqi Minister Begins Oil Sector Turnaround

9 August 2006

More than two months after taking over Iraq’s embattled oil sector and pledging to fight corruption, Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani is taking timid steps to put the ministry back on track.

Al-Shahristani’s first move has been to oust directors-general who were appointed on political merit or as a result of pressure from influential politicians. The purge involves about six employees who were brought in as directors but did not head any of the ministry’s directorates.

“He gave them a choice either to take early retirement or accept a demotion and stay in the ministry,” one ministry source told International Oil Daily Tuesday.

Furthermore, al-Shahristani has empowered his three deputy ministers, who had been sidelined previously for the benefit of advisers…

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Badri . Bahr al-Uloum . Barham . Dujaili . Falah al-Amiri . Falah Khawaja . Ghadban . Karim Hattab . Maliki . Mutassim Akram . NOC . Obeidi . Qazaz . Razouki . Saleh . Scop. . Shahristani . Shamaa . Somo . Waqaa . Wardi 2006

Iraq Takes Heavy Toll on Oil Workers

6 November 2006

Three-and-a-half years after the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, some companies that had high hopes of business opportunities are shutting up shop after suffering heavy losses.

US engineering giant Bechtel, which carried out $2.3 billion of work for the US in Iraq since April 2003, said last week that it was leaving the war-torn country after a spate of violence that killed 52 workers.

Bechtel was tasked with rebuilding roads and bridges, expanding the power grid, cleaning up water supply and installing communication lines. The company said it completed all but two of the 99 projects on its to-do list, but at the cost of 52 dead and 49 wounded.

Risk consulting firm Kroll Security International, a division of…

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Al-Ahdab . Badri . Basrah . Bechtel . CNPC . Fattal . hydrocarbon law . Kroll . Muthana . NOC . oil . Qazaz . risk . Scop. . security . Shahristani . Somo . Talabani 2006