11 August 2006 Iraq’s Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has so far failed to impose his authority over the city council of Basrah while calls for the establishment of an autonomous federation of the south are increasing. Basrah — the capital of the southern oil province and currently home to all of Iraq’s oil exports — has been wrought by a power struggle among Shiite factions over the past year,…
Tag: Basrah
Iraq, Iran Oil Deal Raises Suspicions
15 August 2006 Iraq and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on Sunday to swap Iraqi Basrah oil for refined products, the second such deal since July 2005. The two Mideast nations also agreed over the weekend to jointly develop shared oil fields, an issue that is expected to raise suspicion by critics of an Iran-Iraq alliance. With Iraq in the midst of its worst fuel crisis since 2003,…
Iraqi Parliament Sets Ball Rolling for Autonomous South Region
12 October 2006 The Iraqi parliament on Wednesday approved a controversial law which sets out the procedures for the country’s 18 provinces to hold referendums to merge themselves into larger federal regions with a measure of self government. Although the powers of the autonomous regions would include signing their own oil deals with international oil companies, they would have to wait until 2008 when the new law goes into effect….
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…