Iraq Watch – The Need for Clarity

17 October 2008 Iraq finally unveiled the terms of its big upstream opening. International oil companies now realize that to win a 20-year service contract to rehabilitate and redevelop some of Iraq’s giant oil fields, they need to offer it high production targets at the lowest cost. For committing to spend money on rehabilitation of infrastructure and drilling of wells as well as a new reassessment of recoverable reserves in…

Iraq: Debating the Model

5 September 2008 Since launching its first postwar licensing round in late June, Iraq’s leadership has been struggling to reach a consensus on what commercial terms would best protect long-term national interests while offering quick and efficient solutions for an oil industry worn down by years of war, sanctions and scant resources. The main issue arising from the internal debate is who should operate oil fields — the national oil…

Shell’s Upstream Chief Offers His Take on Iraq’s Landmark Bid Round

7 November 2008 Despite its disappointment that Iraqi oil fields it had been studying were opened to international bidding, Royal Dutch Shell says it welcomes the transparent process Iraq has chosen for its first landmark bid round. But the Anglo-Dutch supermajor’s upstream chief, Malcolm Brinded, says he needs to see contract terms before assessing whether the service deals have “long-term robustness” in the absence of a nationwide hydrocarbon law. “It…