Thread: Iraq/Dinar News until 5/23/07 Midnight CST

Iraq-Iranian agreement to lay oil pipeline
By Dergham Mohammed Ali


Baghdad, 18 May 2007 (Voices of Iraq)

The Iraqi government has agreed with Iran to start laying oil pipeline between the two countries to export Iraqi oil to the neighboring country, the official spokesman for Iraq's Oil Ministry said on Thursday.

"The agreement came during the meeting between Iraqi oil minister Hussein al-Shahrestani and Iranian Ambassador to Iraq Hasan Kazemi Qomi at the minister’s office," Essam Jihad told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).

"The two agreed to lay the oil pipeline from southern Iraq to Abadan region in Iran in order to export more than 200,000 barrels per day of Iraqi crude oil to Iran according to crude oil international prices," he also said.

He noted that the new pipeline will provide a new way to boost the country's export capacity to Iranian refineries in Abadan.

"They also agreed to arrange a mutual visit for technicians from both countries to prepare the agreement's contracts," the official added.

Iran to build four refineries in southern IraqBy Sameer Zair

18 May 2007 (Azzaman)

Prime Miniter Nour al-Maliki has given Iran preferential treatment in winning contracts in southern Iraq.

The move signals the growing influence Tehran exercises in the country particularly in southern provinces where Iraq’s largest and most prolific oil fields are situated.

Maliki is reported to have officially invited Iranian firms to construct four refineries in the area which recently has been the scene of sporadic fighting between Shiite militias – which are generally pro-Tehran – and U.S. and Iraqi troops.

The Iranian firms are to make their offers to build these refineries.

The Oil Ministry has asked foreign firms to submit their offers to start working on the 10 refineries.

The countries are now considering building a pipeline to carry Iraqi crude to Iranian refineries in Abadan.

As foreign firms are reluctant to work in Iraq due to the upsurge in violence, the Iranians seem to be willing to replace them despite security concerns.

Iraqi backs 'benchmark' action
By David R. Sands


18 May 2007 (Washington Times)

Iraq's parliament should pass a new oil law and make progress on amending the constitution before the end of the month, two key "benchmarks" being demanded by U.S. officials, a top Iraqi official said yesterday.

Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, one of the highest-ranking Kurdish officials in the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, said that despite the increasingly pessimistic debate in Washington, Iraqi lawmakers should take action on both difficult issues in the coming days.

Mr. Salih said Iraqis are watching the U.S. debate over the Iraq war with mounting concern, saying that even recent signs of progress in Iraq are being overlooked in the partisan debate here.

"I know a lot of my colleagues are worried and watching the debate here very closely," he said in remarks at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. "Every nuance is analyzed -- maybe overanalyzed."

President Bush has rejected efforts by congressional Democrats to condition funding for the Iraq war on hard-and-fast benchmarks.

But both Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney have said in recent days that progress by the Iraqi government on the oil law and other key measures was essential for continued U.S. military and economic support.

Other U.S. benchmarks for the al-Maliki government include holding new provincial elections and amending the near-blanket ban on government and military posts for former members of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party.

Showing the sensitivity in Baghdad to the U.S. debate, both Mr. Salih and Iraqi National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie said in Washington in recent days that the Iraqi parliament will cut short a planned two-month recess scheduled to begin in July and may cancel it altogether.

U.S. lawmakers had angrily denounced the summer break at a time when terror strikes and anti-government insurgent attacks show no signs of easing.

Finding a way to share Iraq's vast oil wealth is considered vital to finding a political accommodation satisfying Iraq's Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish factions. One key sticking point has been the payment mechanism to ensure that each region gets its fair share of the oil profits.

The Kurds have also fiercely objected to a draft oil law issued in February and revised last month. They say it would place more than 90 percent of the country's fields under a new state-controlled national oil company and scare off foreign companies who are already signing deals to develop fields in the relatively secure Kurdish-dominated north.

Many Sunni and Shi'ite politicians insist Iraq's oil wealth should be controlled by the national government. The powerful oil workers' union is also deeply suspicious of non-Iraqi investors.

Despite reports that the oil law is in trouble, Mr. Salih said yesterday, "It is still our hope that we will offer a success story by the end of the month."

He said Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan regional government, was traveling to Baghdad in the next few days to discuss compromises on the oil law.

"In any other country, such a law would take years and years to draft, even if you had stability," Mr. Salih said. "We've done the basic work in six months on what has historically been a very contentious issue."

The deputy prime minister said a parliamentary committee studying the constitution plans to issue a long-awaited report a week from today. Sunni politicians have been demanding changes to the current constitution, which they say favors Shi'ite and Kurdish interests.

A major stumbling block has emerged over the fate of Kirkuk, an oil-rich, ethnically mixed city that the Kurds see as the future capital of their region. Some lawmakers have urged a delay in a planned referendum later this year on Kirkuk's status, but Mr. Salih echoed other Kurdish lawmakers yesterday in insisting the vote should go forward as scheduled.

Yesterday saw continued violence in Iraq as the U.S. military reported five U.S. soldiers were killed in four separate attacks in and around Baghdad and an additional soldier died of non-combat-related causes.

In the southern city of Basra, a Danish soldier was killed, and five were wounded by a roadside bomb. It was the seventh Danish soldier killed in Iraq.

U.S. forces continued to comb an area about 20 miles south of Baghdad, searching for three American soldiers thought to have been captured by an al Qaeda unit after an ambush Saturday. Four other U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi soldier were killed in the attack.

Iraq asks Iran firms to bid for oil refinery work
By Mariam Karouny


BAGHDAD, 17 May 2007 (Reuters)

Iraq has invited Iranian firms to bid for contracts to build at least four oil refineries across the country, Iraq's oil ministry said on Wednesday in a sign of growing ties with the United States' regional foe.

"Today, the Iranian firms have been invited to bid in building refineries which the ministry has already announced it was planning to build," spokesman Asim Jihad told Reuters.

Iran and Iraq, which fought a bitter war in the 1980s, have been strengthening ties since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, arousing concern among Iraq's once dominant Sunni minority and other Arab states as well as in the United States.

Washington, which considers Iran part of an "axis of evil", accuses Tehran of meddling in Iraq. But the two countries, which broke ties in 1979 after Iran's Islamic Revolution, have said they will hold talks within weeks in Baghdad to discuss helping Iraqi people.

Mustafa Alani, senior consultant and director of the security department at the Dubai-based Gulf Research Centre said the invitation for Iran to bid was probably politically motivated. Iran was unlikely to be able to meet Iraq's refining needs.

"It doesn't make sense," he said. "First of all Iran doesn't have the know-how and the technology. Secondly, they are suffering from their own problems. They are short of supplies themselves and are looking at rationing oil products."

Iraq wants to build at least four refineries to help it solve chronic fuel shortages. The ministry said last year that it wants to build Nahrain, just south of Baghdad, with a capacity of 140,000 barrels per day. A second refinery at Kuya in the north, is projected at 70,000 bpd.

Iraq also plans to build a refinery in Nassiriya, south of Iraq, for export purposes with a capacity of 300,000 bpd and another in southern Amara.

Iraq has eight oil refineries, none of which were damaged during the invasion. Oil officials say that the plants are operating at only 50 percent-75 percent of capacity, forcing Baghdad to import most of its fuel.

PIPELINE TALKS

Jihad said that Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani agreed with the Iranian ambassador on Wednesday to activate an agreement to build a pipeline to carry about 200,000 bpd of Iraqi crude to Iran's southern refineries.

"They have agreed that the technical committees should begin within days mutual visits to discuss costs and the time they need to build the pipeline," Jihad said.

"The Iranians will buy the crude based on market price."

Iraq needs to attract investment from international oil companies to develop its oilfields and increase production.

Oil multinationals are waiting until a new hydrocarbon law, which sets the rules of investment in Iraq to be passed by the parliament before pumping cash into Iraq. International oil firms are eyeing its giant and largely underdeveloped oilfields.

Oil is the country's main source of the hard currency needed to rebuild its economy, and the energy sector is struggling to recover from years of mismanagement and sanctions.

economic window

Asian banks

Imad Principality
While targeting commercial bank profit, the Central Bank does not seek to profit but mainly responsible for consultation with the government in setting monetary policy to achieve its goals of economic, and that is why ownership of the Central Bank usually belonged to the state.

As for his goals differ from the banks and functions are clearly different from those of a commercial bank, in a nutshell, is the fact that the Central Bank (Bank Release) and the Asian Bank by the government, banks, as well as overseeing the volume of bank credit and lender of last resort for banks, and because the Central Bank is the bank deposit by the government, government tax revenues and oversees the issuance of government loans and pay accrued interest on these loans on behalf of the government.

The Central Bank Besides regular banking operations as a bank for banks that the commercial banks to keep some cash reserves and has called (bank deposits), and these deposits are the basis on which (the overall structure of bank credit), since any increase in the volume of these deposits allow commercial banks to launched hand in granting loans to customers any credit for them, and vice versa, the Central Bank as this could impose its control on the size of any bank credit. the volume of bank deposits means that the volume of loans by changing the legal reserve ratio maintained by commercial banks with it if he wanted, for instance, that restricts the size of it raises the credit reserve ratio, and vice versa, can turn to commercial banks if needed cash flow to resort to the Central Bank for rediscounting commercial paper disposal is restricted interest rate (rediscount rate), or what is called (bank rate), higher than the normal rate of discount in the market to avoid competing with commercial banks and the Central Bank could otherwise impose control on the volume of bank credit, through the (open market) any purchase or sale of securities, as if he wanted to expand the credit to buy securities, causing the proportion of cash reserves of commercial banks have on the legally prescribed it is these banks to expansion in the granting of loans or credit ..

Translated version of http://www.alsabaah.com/

US GAO Says Despite $9 Billion Invest, Iraqi Oil Output Below Goals
By Ian Talley


WASHINGTON, 16 May 2007 (Dow Jones)

Despite almost $9 billion in both U.S. and Iraqi investments spent to rebuild the war-ravaged country's oil and electricity sectors, Iraq has failed to meet production goals set by the U.S. administration, the Government Accountability Office said Tuesday.

It warned that billions more would need to be spent to meet the goals, but funding was uncertain.

The GAO said a variety of security, corruption, legal and planning challenges has impeded efforts to restore Iraq's oil and electricity sectors, and recommended the U.S. State Department work with Iraqi ministries to develop an integrated energy strategy.

Average monthly production has hovered just above 2 million barrels a day in the past two years, based on Iraqi Ministry of Oil estimates, compared to a production target of 3 million barrels a day. However, the ministry's number, the GAO said, may be overstated by between 100,000 barrels a day to 300,000 barrels aday, based on Energy Information Administration statistics.

Two factors for the discrepancy are limited storage capacity, which means lower processing, and differences in data collection. But a third is corruption and siphoning off of crude into the black market, the GAO said. If priced at $50 a barrel, which is well below current market price, "that's a discrepancy of $5 million to $15 million a day."

Also, the Iraq government estimates it will be able to meet demand for electricity by 2009, but the report said that projection assumes the stable supply of fuel needed for power generation, "which has been lacking due to poor coordination between the oil and electricity ministries.

"Furthermore, the Iraqi government has difficulty attracting foreign investment because, according to the World Bank, it lacks an adequate legal framework, including comprehensive hydrocarbon legislation that would govern distribution of future oil revenues and granting of exploration rights," it said.

The GAO also said that although the oil and electricity sectors are mutually dependent, "the Iraqi government lacks integrated planning for these sectors, which has led to inefficient management of the country's resources."

The State Department, in its comments on the report, said the Iraqi government, not the U.S. government, is responsible for taking action to improve the energy situation in the country. The GAO said, however, it "believes the recommendations are still valid given the billions made available for Iraq's energy sector and the U.S. government's influence in overseeing Iraq's rebuilding efforts."

Though the U.S. has completed the majority of the planned projects in the oil and electricity sectors, "some of the remaining oil projects that could help to meet U.S. program goals have faced delays due to changes in the scope of work, delays in mobilizing contractors, poor condition of equipment and insecure work environments." Manyof the subcontractors - both domestic and foreign labor - have been killed or kidnapped in the ongoing insurgency throughout Iraq.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reported in March that around 88% of its planned oil projects had been completed and expected to complete all of them by May.

In the electricity sector, the Corps said that 73% of its work on planned electricity projects had been completed, and its other projects are expected to be completed by April 2008.

According to the Department of Defense, the remaining work will enable Iraq to increase crude oil production capacity by 500,000 barrels a day and to increase natural gas production by 1,800 tons a day.

But, the GAO said, each sector will need billions more to achieve its rebuilding goals, and since the majority of the U.S. funds have been spent, the Iraqi government and international donor community represent important sources of potential future funding.

"However, these sources of funding remain uncertain," it warned.

demanding opening of the accounting firms in Basra

Basra-Sabah

Student chairman of the Economic Committee in the province of Basra activist Abdel dagger reopening of the accounting firms in the province through approached Society of Accountants and auditors and authorize the union supported the final account

He said : The Committee discussed the instructions issued by the General Authority for taxes in Baghdad and prevent exchange of Merit contractors are Accountability taxation exclusively in Baghdad and granting powers only to managers in the branches walking clearance for the entry bids exclusively. He added dagger : "The body of the taxes which had been granted in 2006 the powers of the directors include the opening of branches of the accounting firms in the branches because of security conditions and for the purpose of facilitating the review of the citizen in the tax accounting" It is noteworthy that last year and in the light of the powers granted to branch managers saw the registration of more than 700 companies in Basra was opened branch Accounting firms and the amounts received and act as work began now flowing to the high exchange benefits contractors and pledges to companies according to the instructions issued from the body.

Translated version of http://www.alsabaah.com/

the Center for Economic strategic outlook

Seminars and panel of businessmen future

Baghdad-Sabah.

Prepared strategic outlook Studies Center in cooperation with Iraqi businessmen to set up a busy schedule of panels and workshops in the areas of modern economic and banking infrastructure necessary for businessmen.

Declared told (morning) president of the Center, Dr. Suhad Qaisi said that the workshop will be conducted by experts and university professors trained in the areas of banking infrastructure necessary for businessmen in the twenty-first century.
It turned out that the plan included the establishment of the workshop tagged (Department of Business Associations) in the last week of this month and again on Alstratigi planning workshop under the title of foreign investment)

Funding and banks. The plan included the establishment of panel discussions and workshops on agricultural investment and tourism investment and management contracting and bidding, procurement and business correspondence and management of tourist investment, The secretarial and office management. The Center has organized a panel on industrial investment middle of this May I attended the economic aspect of it and it was a successful and details will be published in the Economic Supplement morning.

Translated version of http://www.alsabaah.com/

Originally Posted by Din Diesel

It would not surprise me that after the R/V Iraq will hire an entire army of mercs for security purposes, thus allowing the U.S and allies to conduct a slow withdrawl.

----------------

And a the nations coming in to build and rebuild the Iraq oil fields,,,,,
as well as the company's going in to build electric plants, sewers,
drinking water for the towns, etc... most likely will bring in their own forces to protect the projects.......

They dont want to build something halfway and then have it blown up----
Kindly hard to get paid that way......

Originally Posted by PAn8tv

Iraq-Iranian agreement to lay oil pipeline
By Dergham Mohammed Ali


Baghdad, 18 May 2007 (Voices of Iraq)

The Iraqi government has agreed with Iran to start laying oil pipeline between the two countries to export Iraqi oil to the neighboring country, the official spokesman for Iraq's Oil Ministry said on Thursday.

"The agreement came during the meeting between Iraqi oil minister Hussein al-Shahrestani and Iranian Ambassador to Iraq Hasan Kazemi Qomi at the minister’s office," Essam Jihad told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).

"The two agreed to lay the oil pipeline from southern Iraq to Abadan region in Iran in order to export more than 200,000 barrels per day of Iraqi crude oil to Iran according to crude oil international prices," he also said.

He noted that the new pipeline will provide a new way to boost the country's export capacity to Iranian refineries in Abadan.

"They also agreed to arrange a mutual visit for technicians from both countries to prepare the agreement's contracts," the official added.

Sounds as if the Central Government is doing their own Contracts now. Wonder if this is apart of the INOC (Iraq National Oil Company)? I would imagine it is. And it would seem that there is much more done with the HCL mthan is being reported.