Thread: Archive Latest News - Think Tank - 16/08/07 - 03/11/07

Petrel says has advantage over others if Iraqi hydrocarbon law is passed

08.22.07

LONDON (Thomson Financial) - Petrel Resources said the expected passage of the Iraqi hydrocarbon law will open the door to full participation by private companies in exploring and developing Iraqi oil.

In its current circumstances of war and political uncertainty, Iraq requires attractive terms to entice foreign investment and technology, Petrel Resources noted.

In a statement at its AGM, the company said it has an advantage over competitors, since it has already been active in the oil-rich south of the country for the past decade.

Petrel said its operations in Iraq to date have suffered no direct incidents. The Iraqi authorities, especially the Ministry of Oil, continue to be supportive of its efforts, the company said.

Petrel says has advantage over others if Iraqi hydrocarbon law is passed - Forbes.com

Originally Posted by Lunar

Petrel says has advantage over others if Iraqi hydrocarbon law is passed

08.22.07

LONDON (Thomson Financial) - Petrel Resources said the expected passage of the Iraqi hydrocarbon law will open the door to full participation by private companies in exploring and developing Iraqi oil.

In its current circumstances of war and political uncertainty, Iraq requires attractive terms to entice foreign investment and technology, Petrel Resources noted.

In a statement at its AGM, the company said it has an advantage over competitors, since it has already been active in the oil-rich south of the country for the past decade.

Petrel said its operations in Iraq to date have suffered no direct incidents. The Iraqi authorities, especially the Ministry of Oil, continue to be supportive of its efforts, the company said.

Petrel says has advantage over others if Iraqi hydrocarbon law is passed - Forbes.com

Thanks Lunar, that is a very telling article, and on the mark IMO.

thank you lunar

Originally Posted by OneShotOneKill

Thanks Lunar, that is a very telling article, and on the mark IMO.

You're welcome OneShotOneKill. It certainly provides a more positive angle then we've been seeing lately.

Originally Posted by Admin

thank you lunar

You're welcome. My compliments on the new format....you did a great job.

Iraq PM bristles as tensions grow with U.S.

Wed. Aug 22

BAGHDAD/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki reacted sharply on Wednesday to U.S. criticism of his government's slow progress toward reconciliation, and U.S. President George W. Bush restated his support for Maliki after earlier lukewarm comments.


Bush also drew a comparison with the U.S. experience in Vietnam as he urged perseverance in the unpopular Iraq war. He cited the example of the emergence of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and violence in Vietnam after U.S. troops pulled out to warn of the consequences of leaving Iraq.


The comparison with Vietnam is one the Bush administration has tended to avoid. Many Democrats have likened Iraq to Vietnam, calling the war a quagmire that has exacted a toll in American lives and money without furthering U.S. interests.


U.S. officials have voiced increasing frustration this week with Maliki's failure to advance political reform de****e an increase in the number of U.S. troops, which is intended to give breathing room to his fractured Shi'ite-led coalition.


On Wednesday, Hillary Clinton, the leading Democratic candidate in the 2008 presidential race, joined another Democratic senator's call for Maliki to be replaced.


Even Bush, speaking to reporters in Canada on Tuesday, noted "a certain level of frustration with the leadership" and failed to offer a direct endorsement of Maliki. Earlier on Tuesday, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker said the Maliki government's progress toward reconciliation was "extremely disappointing."


Maliki hit back during a visit to Damascus, saying no one outside Iraq had the right to set timetables for progress.


On Wednesday, Bush said in a speech to U.S. war veterans in Kansas City, Missouri: "Prime Minister Maliki is a good guy, a good man, with a difficult job and I support him."


As the diplomatic heat rose, there was more violence in Iraq. A suicide bomber killed 25 people, including 15 policemen, and wounded 73 in an attack on a police headquarters in Baiji. Fourteen U.S. soldiers were killed in a helicopter crash in northern Iraq blamed on mechanical failure, the worst incident of its kind since January 2005.


Bush's Republican administration is pushing for Iraq's warring Shi'ite Muslim majority and minority Sunni Muslim Arabs to reconcile so it can start bringing troops home from an unpopular war. Crocker and the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, are due to deliver a progress report next month that could signal a change in U.S. policy in Iraq.


Maliki's response to the criticism was blunt. "The Iraqi government was elected by the Iraqi people," he told reporters in the Syrian capital.


"Maybe this person who made a statement yesterday is upset by the nature of our visit to Syria," Maliki said, without making clear if he was referring to Bush or Crocker.


"These statements do not concern us a lot," Maliki said. "We will find many around the world who will support us in our endeavor."


'IDEOLOGICAL STRUGGLE'


In his Kansas City speech, Bush said the war in Iraq, like World War Two, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, was an "ideological struggle," and he again depicted the conflict as part of the broader U.S. war on terrorism.


"The militarists of Japan and the communists in Korea and Vietnam were driven by a merciless vision for the proper ordering of humanity," Bush said.


"Like our enemies in the past, the terrorists who wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places seek to spread a political vision of their own: a harsh plan for life that crushes freedom, tolerance and dissent," he added.

The U.S. military has launched a nationwide offensive targeting Sunni Islamist al Qaeda fighters and Shi'ite militias to thwart an expected increase in attacks ahead of the report to Congress, expected on September 11 or 12.

Washington has set a series of benchmarks for Maliki's government, including a revenue-sharing oil law, which it sees as key to ending the sectarian conflict that has killed tens of thousands of Iraqis.

Reporting the helicopter crash, a U.S. military statement said initial indications suggested the Black Hawk, one of two involved in night operations, had suffered mechanical failure. It was the second incident of its kind in eight days.

"There were no indications of hostile fire," it said.

"That helicopter had been carrying four crew members and 10 passengers." The exact location of the crash was not immediately clear.

The deaths took to 3,721 the number of U.S. military killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, including 63 this month.

Iraq PM bristles as tensions grow with U.S. - Yahoo! Canada News

Western oil major’s bid marks breakthrough for troubled Iraqi industry

August 23, 2007

The prospects for Kurdish oil were given a boost yesterday when DNO, a Norwegian explorer, said that a big oil company had offered $700 million (£351 million) for its licence in Kurdistan.

The indicative offer for the licence, which was rejected by DNO, includes its discovery at Tawke, in northeastern Iraq, in territory administered by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), and represents almost half the value of DNO. It sent the Norwegian explorer’s shares up 12 per cent on the Oslo bourse.

DNO declined to name the interested purchaser, describing it as “a large international oil company”. Speculation yesterday centred on Statoil, the Norwegian oil multinational, which recently revealed plans to open an office in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish region, to study exploration opportunities in the region.

A bid by a big Western oil group for a Kurdish oil licence would be the first significant foreign investment in Iraq’s oil industry. The threat of kidnappings and violence has kept foreign investors from the vast oil reserves in southern Iraq, while political risk has deterred oil majors from setting foot in the Kurdish region.

Oil industry experts also pointed to Indian or Chinese companies, which have been aggressive in their pursuit of oil assets, and they highlighted the significant risk for a Western oil major in making a Kurdish investment. “No oil major would invest in the Kurdish region because they know it will wreck their chances in southern Iraq,” the chief executive of one oil company with interests in the region said.

DNO’s activity in Kurdistan and its Tawke find have fuelled controversy in Iraq and created friction between the KRG and the national Government in Baghdad, which resented the issuing of oil exploration licences by the Kurdish administration.

The Norwegian explorer acquired its licence in 2004 and confirmed its discovery at Tawke in 2005, but development of the prospect has been dogged by quarrels between Erbil and Baghdad over ownership of mineral rights and agreement over a federal Iraqi petroleum law, which would create a legal regime for oil exploration. Development of Kurdistan’s oil prospects is believed to be a key plank in the KRG’s softly-softly strategy of creating an independent Kurdish state. The KRG has issued licences to a number of other companies, including Addax Petroleum, a Canadian explorer, which hopes to develop the Taq Taq field in collaboration with Genel Enerji, a Turkish oil business.

Agreement with Baghdad over the oil law is essential to enable oil exports to be made from the region. DNO has laid a pipeline to connect the Tawke oilfield with Iraq’s main northern export pipeline, which links the Kirkuk oilfield to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. The final link to the export route awaits the passage of the oil law in Baghdad, which DNO hopes will occur in September.

The northern export route has been shut since the American-led invasion of Iraq because of bombings of the pipeline by insurgents. Closure of the northern pipeline has hit efforts to raise Iraqi oil exports above their present 1.7 million barrels per day (bpd) to prewar levels as high as 2.5 million bpd.

The Iraqi Government is trying to rebuild the pipeline, but the explorers in Kurdistan hope that a link to the export route near the Turkish border will secure their exports and avoid the violence taking place in the Kirkuk region. Hussain al-Shahristani, the Iraqi Oil Minister, expressed confidence this week that the Iraqi parliament would pass the oil law soon.

However, the minister hinted that resolution of the dispute between Baghdad and Erbil was still not assured. He said that the new law would review oil and gas deals struck by Saddam Hussein and the KRG to “guarantee total national control and the highest return for Iraq” and added: “Any contract that contradicts this has to be redrawn.”

The KRG has accepted the principle that all oil revenues should be divided between the Iraqi regions, but insists that its region must be compensated for oppression of it during the Saddam regime, when it was excluded from participating in the oil wealth.

DNO yesterday revealed further progress at its Tawke prospect, with the appraisal of a further well, drilling deeper into the reservoir. It said that a test had achieved flow rates of 8,000 bpd from its Tawke 8 well.

Takeover speculation has swirled over DNO before. In January, its shares rose 16 per cent when a major shareholder said that he had received an offer for his 5 per cent stake.

Western oil major’s bid marks breakthrough for troubled Iraqi industry - Times Online

Kurdistan's oil law 'meant to speed up development'

Published: August 23, 2007

Arbil: The autonomous Kurdish parliament approved their own regional oil and gas law ahead of the the Baghdad-based Parliament's endorsement, drawing anger and criticisms.

The Sunni Muslim Scholars Association, which considers the ratified law as illegal, forbade investors to work by its contents.

The parliament in Baghdad has approved the federal draft oil and gas law. The cabinet has to approve the draft law.

However, various political groups have been seeking amendments to the draft law, thereby the draft is yet to be approved.

Gulf News talked to the foreign relations service official in the Kurdistan regional government, Falah Mustafa Bakir, on the issue.

Gulf News: Why did the Parliament of Kurdistan ratify the regional oil and gas law and why now?

Falah Mustafa Bakir: The Parliament of Kurdistan approved the draft law after one year of negotiations with the federal government in Baghdad.

The state consultative council, an appointed body based in Baghdad, made some substantial amendments though it does not have the right to make these changes.

Are you saying that you have approved the original draft and not the draft that included the amendments introduced by the consultative council making some amendments?

It is true.

The Kurdistan regional oil and gas law allows you to participate in managing old oil fields in Iraq beside newly discovered ones, besides exporting approximately one million barrels per day in the future. Does that mean that Kurdistan will be able to sign contracts for oil investment by itself?

What you mentioned as the features granted by the regional law are true, yet the whole matter will be coordinated with the federal government in Baghdad.

Also, the agreement contracts will be signed only through the federal oil and gas council where we are represented by the Kurdistan minister of natural resources.

All revenues from exporting oil and gas from Kurdistan will go to Baghdad and our share of it will be 17 per cent of the total oil and gas imports according to the census.

Was the approval of the regional law in Kurdistan a political card to pressurise the parliament in Baghdad to ratify the law later?

No, we do not intend to put pressure on the Iraqi parliament and we do not think this way.

We practised our constitutional right and the regional parliament approved the law to accelerate development and provide job opportunities for Kurdistan citizens.

The Sunni Muslim Scholars Association reacted angrily to the law in Kurdistan and considered it as null. What are your comments?

The association has no right to criticise the law nor our move.

It is our constitutional and legal right. The issue was studied by experts and advisors before its endorsement.

Some experts say that you will have the right to explore new oil and gas fields. What is your response?

This is not true. Our share will be 17 per cent of the total gas and oil revenue regardless of new oil wells.

Some politicians accused the Kurdistan government's approval of the regional law, of working to secede from Iraq. What is your comment?

I emphasise that the law ratification meant that Kurdistan is part of Iraq and it could not secede from it.

Can Turkey impede exporting oil and gas from the area ?

It is Iraqi federal government's concern.

Oil and gas will be exported from the [northern] provinces through known ports and pipelines across Iraq.

Gulfnews: Kurdistan's oil law 'meant to speed up development'

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