Thread: Archive Latest News - Think Tank - 01/01/08 - 14/04/08

Crumbs - some things just don't change - lol........

Kurdistan Region’s Oil Contracts Still Remain Controversial, Spokesman Says

Speaking to AKI news agency, the spokesman of the Kurdistan Alliance Bloc in the Iraqi Council of Representatives, Firyad Rawanduzi, said that the discussion of gas and oil dossier in current month in Iraqi Council of Representatives is unlikely.

The issue of the oil contracts still remains controversial between the Iraqi federal government and Kurdistan regional government, while the completed dossier is expected to be sent to the Council in May, as he said.

“The Federal Council is not authorized to object to the Kurdistan region’s oil contracts, while the council can return the oil contacts to Kurdistan region to make changes to the ways the contracts have been signed,” Rawanduzi said.

The Federal Council consists of the Iraqi planning, finance, and oil ministers, head of the Central Bank, and a representative from the Kurdistan Regional Government.

PUKmedia :: English - Kurdistan Region’s Oil Contracts Still Remain Controversial, Spokesman Says

Austrian Airlines Resumes Flights to Erbil

Seven month after stopping flights to Kurdistan region, the Austrian Airlines resumes flights to Erbil. Today an airplane with almost 100 passengers on board landed at Erbil International Airport.

Three flights a week (on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays) are planned for April and May and four a week (including Sunday) from June onwards. As a result, a direct service to Erbil will be reincorporated into the Austrian route network, opening up numerous new connecting flights for passengers.

Austrian Airlines was the first European airline to receive landing rights in Iraq. The route to Erbil, opened up on 11 December 2006.

PUKmedia :: English - Austrian Airlines Resumes Flights to Erbil

Sharp drop in demand for dollar at daily auction

Demand for the dollar was sharply down in the Iraqi Central Bank's auction on Wednesday, registering at $ 33.400 million compared to $159.170 million on Tuesday, while the dollar exchange rate reached 1,205 dinars, a tick lower than yesterday.

"The demand hit $15.530 million in cash and $17.870 million in money transfers outside the country, all covered by the bank at an exchange rate of 1,205 Iraqi dinars per dollar, a tick lower than yesterday, " according to the central bank's daily bulletin which was received by Aswat al-Iraq- Voices of Iraq- (VOI).

None of the 11 banks that participated in the auction offered to sell dollars.

Speaking to VOI, a trader attributed the lower demand for the dollar to the small number of the banks that participated in today’s session.

The Iraqi Central Bank runs a daily auction from Sunday to Thursday.

Aswat Aliraq

Shell says ready to help Iraq boost oil output

Royal Dutch Shell is ready to help Iraq boost oil production once that country's government finalizes a petroleum law covering big energy projects, the head of the oil giant said on Tuesday.

"We are very much prepared to go back to Iraq," Shell chief executive officer Jeroen van der Veer said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington.

But first, he said, Shell employees must be able to work safely in the country and a petroleum law must be passed.

"You have to know the rules of the game because you have to bring a lot of money to the country (to develop its oil)," he said. "We expect that the petroleum law, we hope that it is finally passed...during this year."

The law would provide conditions for investment and international participation in Iraq's oil and gas industry.

Iraq holds the world's third biggest oil reserves at 115 billion barrels and has some of the cheapest extraction costs, according to the U.S. Energy Department.

Increasing Iraq's oil production to take advantage of high crude prices is seen as key to rebuilding the country's economy.

Iraq's oil output averages almost 2.3 million barrels a day, but with enough investment, the country holds enough crude to double its production, according to some estimates.

http://www.iraqdirectory.com/DisplayNews.aspx?id=5805

Government intends to issue a supplementary budget of $5 billion

statement issued by the Office of the Spokesman for the Iraqi government on Monday said that the government intends to issue a supplementary budget of $5 billion, to the budget of 2008, by the end of June due to the increase in Iraq's income under the high oil prices.

The statement added, "The amount will be allocated for important and strategic investment projects of the ministries and governorates of Iraq."

He explained that the Iraqi Minister of Finance requested "from all ministries and provinces to provide technical and financial studies for these projects, intended to improve the infrastructure and services provided to citizens, to be adopted within the supplementary budget."

Iraqi parliament had voted at the end of last February for Iraq's budget in 2008, which amounted to $48 billion.

Government intends to issue a supplementary budget of $5 billion

Iraq signs $5.5 billion Boeing deal for 55 aircrafts

Iraq has said it has signed a contract worth $5.5 billion dollars with Boeing to buy 40 new aircrafts, with an option to buy 15 more.

"Baghdad had also signed a $400-million-dollar contract with Canadian aircraft manufacturer Bombardier to purchase 10 passenger planes," Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement.

He pointed out the "Delivery of the aircraft would start this year, with final delivery expected by the end of 2019."

The spokesman added the government would "Issue a $5 billion dollar complimentary budget to boost investment and infrastructure projects across Iraqi provinces."

He noted "The funding for the complimentary budget was earned from the rise in crude oil prices in the global markets."

Iraq has the third largest oil reserve in the world. Its exports, along with those of neighboring Gulf countries, represent the nerve of the global oil market.

Iraq Development Program - Iraq signs $5.5 billion Boeing deal for 55 aircrafts

Iraq yet to fully restore facility

Iraq has yet to fully restore 100,000 barrels per day of oil output that has been shut in since a bomb attack on a pipeline last Thursday, reported Reuters, citing an Iraqi oil official. Iraq had aimed to fully restore the flow on Tuesday. A problem at a pumping station from the Bazargan oilfield in the south has caused the disruption in oil flow since Thursday, but officials have not clarified whether the decline is a result of a bomb attack that occurred at a pipeline branch from Bazargan last Thursday.

Iraq yet to fully restore facility | Energy, Oil and Gas

Iraq looking at oil surplus, big profits

WASHINGTON - Iraq is looking at a potential boon in oil revenue this year, as the U.S. spends some $153 million a month in the country on fuel alone. But U.S. officials say it will take some time before Baghdad builds the capacity to manage the revenue.

The money isn't "just sitting in banks trying to get somebody rich on interest income," said Adm. William Fallon, who recently stepped down as the top U.S. military commander in the Middle East. "It's because they're in a holding position now until they can figure out how to effectively disburse these moneys."

Stuart Bowen, special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, said Baghdad in recent months has experienced its highest oil production and export levels since the war began five years ago.

Whereas Iraqi officials estimated $35 billion in oil revenue last fall, Bowen said the final number is likely to be closer to $60 billion.

Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and John Warner, R-Va., have called for an investigation into Iraq's handling of the money. While Iraq pays for fuel for its own troops, it relies heavily on U.S. dollars to provide citizens with basic services, including more than $45 billion for reconstruction.

"We believe that it has been overwhelmingly U.S. taxpayer money that has funded Iraq reconstruction over the last five years, despite Iraq earning billions of dollars in oil revenue over that time period that have ended up in non-Iraqi banks," Levin and Warner wrote in a letter to the head of the Government Accountability Office.

"At the same time, our conversations with both Iraqis and Americans during our frequent visits to Iraq, as well as official government and unofficial media reports, have convinced us that the Iraqi government is not doing nearly enough to provide essential services and improve the quality of life of its citizens," they said.

The senators estimated that Iraq will realize "at least $100 billion in oil revenues in 2007 and 2008."

But administration and military officials say it's not that easy to distribute the money. They contend that Iraq's lack of spending isn't due to laziness or corruption, but rather Baghdad's inability to determine where its money is needed most and how to allocate it efficiently.

The Iraqis have a "genuine mechanical problem in drawing up national budgets (and) executing those budgets, particularly when it comes to capital infrastructure," said David Satterfield, the State Department's senior adviser on Iraq.

Iraq's Oil Ministry in 2006, for example, spent only a fraction of its capital budget, he said.

"It wasn't a security reason. It wasn't a political reason. It wasn't a question of corruption. It was an issue of simply a lack of experience in how you go about doing capital investment," Satterfield said. "Iraq is a country, you have to recall, in which virtually no capital infrastructure investment had been made for decades."

Satterfield and other officials say the situation is improving.

The Defense Energy Support Center, which acts as the military's primary broker for fuel, provides troops in Iraq with about 1.2 million barrels of fuel per month at $127.68 a barrel, a price that reflects crude oil refined into usable fuel.

Iraq looking at oil surplus, big profits - Yahoo! News

Oil: Saudi controls Iraqi pipeline

Oil Ministry disclosed that Saudi Arabia controls Iraqi oil export pipeline that passes its lands to Red Sea as it confirmed that Kurdistan region even if it signed contracts with foreign companies to exploit oil, it couldn’t export the oil because neighbor states not ready to pass this oil through its lands and it agreed on this issue without any pressure from the ministry, senior official at the ministry said that didn’t mention his name.

The Iraqi Saudi pipeline considered strategic line because it exports more than 1,5m b/d and installed by only Iraqi money.

Oil: Saudi controls Iraqi pipeline | Iraq Updates

Basra, Iran... It all comes down to oil
Recent violence is a precursor to the political break-up of the nation, says Robert Fox

Behind the recent fighting in Basra, which has halted the further withdrawal of British troops from Iraq, lies a three-letter word - oil. It is no coincidence that the day Iraq's prime minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered the Iraqi army into Basra to fight the militia of Moqtada al-Sadr, negotiations began in Jordan for contracts to repair and upgrade existing oil fields around Basra and exploit three huge new fields in the desert further west.

These deals with multinational companies could triple the output from the Basra oil region, already one of the richest in the world. Who controls Basra controls much of the future wealth of Iraq and the upper Gulf.

Al-Maliki belongs to the Dawa Party, the smallest of the three major Shia political movements in Iraq, whose influence across the oil-rich south has been steadily waning.

Last month he gambled that Iraqi army units, newly trained by the US and UK, could beat the Mahdi Army of Moqtada al-Sadr.

Under the pretext of "winning back the streets of Basra from the militias and criminal gangs," al-Maliki launched a force of some 30,000 to dislodge Moqtada's men from their strongholds in Basra, Amarah and Kut. After six days of heavy street-fighting, the Iraqi army made no headway. Moqtada's men have won an enormous psychological victory that they did not expect. The Mahdi Army now looks like the strongest Iraqi force in central and southern Iraq, more capable than the Iraqi army itself.

Al-Maliki, described recently by a British military adviser as having "almost no strategic judgment", was urged to action by American neo-con militants like retired General Jack Keane and Fred Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute. But American and British commanders urged caution, believing the Iraqi army wasn't yet up to the job. So al-Maliki told allied commanders of his plan to put troops into Basra only a few hours before they went in.

Al-Maliki clearly fears that Moqtada will win the provincial elections due later this year - and that they will deliver him real power over Basra and its oil.

What concerns al-Maliki and the US neo-cons is Moqtada's interpretation of Iraq's new oil law - which they believe is likely to favour Tehran rather that Baghdad in the commercial development of common fields and common pipelines. The law is deliberately ambiguous about exploitation of fields which run across national boundaries. The oil minister, Hussein Shahrastani, whose ancestory is from Iran, has kept silent about what happens to oil fields that extend into Iran - where there are already accusations of the Iranians pumping oil from under Iraq.

The American hawks under Dick Cheney fear that Moqtada's propaganda win in Basra will be linked to Iran's recent successes in energy politics. A further blow to the White House policy of isolating Iran by sanctions was a deal struck by the Swiss last month to buy 194tr cubic feet of gas from Iran annually from 2011. It was sealed at a ceremony in Tehran where Micheline Calmy-Rey, the Swiss foreign minister, was photographed shrouded in a headscarf, smiling and shaking the hand of President Ahmadinejad.

Ironically, the Americans' favourite Shia leader, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, would likely be no less pro-Iranian than Moqtada when it comes to oil. Al-Hakim wants to see Iraq become a loose federation, with Basra at the centre of a southern super-region. In Tehran, that is seen as an opportunity for closer ties, possibly even the use of Iranian pipelines and ports to transport Iraqi oil.

So the oil card is slipping from Washington's hand, thanks to the misjudgment of al-Maliki in attacking Moqtada's militias. In the dying days of the Bush regime, fears are growing again that if the America can't win the oil contest, it will resort to force - even the bombing of Iran. At least the main regional leaders, Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have told Dick Cheney they won't go along with such a suicidal move.

Oil, al-Sadr and the future of Iraq | Opinion | The First Post