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

Iraq in Talks With Oil Majors to Raise Output, Times Reports

By Tim Barwell

Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Companies including Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc are in discussion with Iraq's government about helping to increase the country's oil and gas output, the London-based Times said, without attribution.

They would provide training, equipment and expertise to assist Iraq in meeting a target of raising production to 2.6 million barrels by the end of this year, and 2.8 million within two years from the present 2.4 million, the Times said.

The oil majors would be paid in oil rather than cash, the newspaper said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tim Barwell in London [email protected]

Prince Andrew Says U.S. Should Take British Advice (Update1)

By Kitty Donaldson

Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Prince Andrew, a trade envoy and fourth in line to the throne, said the U.S. should take Britain's advice on dealing with post-conflict Iraq.

The U.K.'s experience as a colonial power means the country has experience of dealing with the aftermath of wars, the prince said in an interview with the International Herald Tribune before a trip to the U.S. The paper said he was referring to Iraq.

``If you are looking at colonialism, if you are looking at operations on an international scale, if you are looking at understanding each other's culture, understanding how to operate in a military insurgency campaign -- we have been through them all,'' Andrew said, according to the newspaper. ``We've won some, lost some, drawn some. The fact is there is quite a lot of experience over here which is valid and should be listened to.''

Andrew, 47, is known as the Duke of York, the title conferred on him by his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. Prince Andrew ranks behind Prince Charles and his two sons, William and Harry, in succession plans. He represents Britain on trade and business interests around the world.

Before taking on the job in 2000, the duke flew helicopters for the Royal Navy. He saw military action throughout the 1982 war between the U.K. and Argentina over the disputed Falkland islands.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice visits London tomorrow for talks with British officials including Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Foreign Secretary David Miliband.

To contact the reporters on this story: Kitty Donaldson in London at [email protected] .

Agility of Kuwait Forms Iraqi Logistics Venture in Kurdistan

By Arif Sharif

Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Agility, the Middle East's largest storage company, formed a joint venture in Iraq's Kurdistan region to build warehouses and provide logistics services including customs clearing.

Agility Kurdistan Ltd. is part-owned by Kurdistan Capital Investment and two local businessmen, Kuwait-based Agility said in an e-mailed statement today.

To contact the reporter on this story: Arif Sharif in Dubai at [email protected]

Last Updated: February 5, 2008 08:36 EST

Tue Feb 5, 3:10 PM




WASHINGTON (AFP) - The status and role of private security firms like Blackwater in Iraq is central to upcoming talks between Washington and Baghdad, Iraqi ambassador to the US Samir Sumaidaie said Tuesday.

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The future of such private security companies "is one of the prime concerns that the Iraqis will put on the table," he told reporters in Washington.


"We want them to be accountable. Our position is that we want them to be accountable under Iraqi law."


Blackwater is the most controversial of several private US security firms tasked with protecting high-profile US officials and foreign dignitaries visiting Iraq.


Iraqi leaders will meet their US allies later this month to negotiate a new agreement on relations between the two countries and the long-term presence of US forces, the Iraqi government announced on Monday.


The private companies are under fire because of the high numbers of civilian deaths and injuries they inflict upon Iraqis.


The most controversial such incident occurred on September 16, 2007 when Blackwater guards fatally shot 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad.


The companies at present are not subject to Iraq law, but at the same time are not governed by US military tribunals, allowing them to operate without any repercussions for their actions.


Sumaidaie said he ruled out blanket immunity for the companies.


"For us it is unacceptable," he said. "I think it should be unacceptable for the Americans as well because that gives them licence to do anything they please which is counter-productive from the American point of view."

e Feb 5, 10:33 AM



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What's this
By Michael Holden

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BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's temporary new national flag was raised over the country's parliament for the first time on Tuesday, trumpeted by the government as a break with the past and a step towards reconciliation.


In another symbolic move, the government said it had started to rebuild a revered Shi'ite shrine which was bombed two years ago, sparking sectarian violence which killed tens of thousands of Iraqis and took the country to the brink of civil war.


Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki presided over the flag-raising outside his offices in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone in a ceremony watched by cabinet members and dignitaries.


Last month, parliament agreed to adopt the new flag, which is very similar to the old one, in a move long demanded by the country's Kurdish minority who said the old banner was a reminder of the brutality of Saddam Hussein's rule.


"It erases the impact of the past," Maliki said. The flag will fly for a year before a permanent replacement is chosen.


Kurdish officials had refused to fly the old flag, introduced after the coup by Saddam's Baath party in 1963, and it was banned in largely autonomous northern Kurdistan.


Some ordinary Iraqis were far from impressed. Officials in Falluja in western Anbar province, once a Sunni Arab insurgent stronghold, said they would not fly it unless ordered to do so.


"I think that parliament and the government will gain the hatred of the people against it," Falluja Mayor Saad Rasheed told Reuters.


Many ordinary Iraqis saw the old flag as having little to do with Saddam, a Sunni Arab, and would prefer the government focused on issues such as improving basic services like electricity and water, which still run only intermittently.


"Our so-called leaders have been doing nothing for us so far and now they want to erase our symbolic flag and make a new one," said one woman in southern Baghdad's Doura neighborhood.


HEAL WOUNDS


In another move to heal wounds, Maliki said Samarra, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, and its al-Askari mosque which was badly damaged in a bombing by suspected al Qaeda militants in February 2006 would be rebuilt.


That bombing toppled the mosque's famed golden dome and unleashed savage sectarian fighting between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Muslims.


"The reconstruction of Samarra city represents a blow against everybody who wants to make it an open door to sectarianism and to everybody who planned to drag the country into civil war," Maliki said in a statement.


The U.S. military said a civilian woman had been killed on Tuesday during a raid by its troops against al Qaeda suspects, the day after it admitted accidentally killing nine civilians.


The woman was killed when soldiers returned fire after being shot at as they entered a house in the small town of Dour near Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad.


Two men, suspected militants, were also killed and a young girl received leg wounds, the U.S. military said in a statement.

The killing of Iraqi civilians by U.S. soldiers has long put a strain on relations between Baghdad and Washington. The U.S. military says militants often deliberately use civilians as shields against attacking U.S. forces.

But critics say U.S. forces often fire on militants without taking reasonable care to find out who else is in the area.

Similar criticisms have been leveled at the thousands of private security contractors working across Iraq, particularly after a shooting incident last September involving U.S. firm Blackwater in which 17 Iraqis were killed.

On Tuesday, Iraq's cabinet approved a bill that would end the immunity enjoyed by foreign security contractors and allow the Interior Ministry to arrest those involved in future incidents. The bill will now go to parliament for approval.

Of the Central Bank published data on the Iraqi economy in the Bulletin of the World Bank

Baghdad - Iraq votes

05 02 2008 at 15:42:04


Central Bank said on Tuesday that it will publish statistics and financial statements and related statistics macroeconomic Iraq for the first time in more than thirty years in the bulletin issued by the World Bank.
The Bank said in a statement issued on Tuesday, got Independent News Agency (Voices of Iraq) a copy of it, it will be published statistics on the Iraqi economy overall in Group and the International Financial Statistics in the periodic bulletin of the International Monetary Fund starting from the beginning of March next year.
He added: "It is the first time since 1977 that Iraq enjoy this advanced level of the publication and circulation of information Almatlgah macroeconomic of nominally after missing pages from Iraq any useful information and withheld from the international community for a period of over thirty years."
The statement said that the publication of these data "opened a new era of integration in the international community ... and give Iraq a classification ahead in the evaluation of international development and transparency as well as relevant markets and deepening international financial and economic institutions."
http://translate.google.com/translat...ial%26hs%3DU4h

Daring investors put faith in Iraqi stocks

When we ask asset managers for investment advice, the answers are usually pretty banal. Some stocks, a portion in bonds and perhaps some alternative investments and emerging market exposure.

One European fund manager bucked the norm and set up a fund that almost exclusively invests in Iraq – and registered an impressive 25 per cent return in 2007.

Putting money into stocks in a war-torn country is not for the risk averse, and finding a manager to oversee a fund in such an environment does not come cheap. Bjorn Englund, managing director and founder of Luxembourg-based Godvig Capital Management, launched the Iraq-focused Babylon Fund in September 2006 with $8 million (Dh29.3m).

The fund evenly distributes its investments across companies listed on the Iraqi Stock Exchange (ISX), Iraqi bonds and Middle Eastern and Western companies that conduct business in Iraq. But Englund told Emirates Business he expects “to have 80 per cent of the portfolio in the Iraqi market by the end of 2008”.


For this exposure, Babylon’s fee structure is more hedge fund than mutual fund – Godvig charges the two per cent management and 20 per cent performance (in excess of eight per cent) fees. The open-ended fund now has $15m under management, with a minimum investment of $100,000. The investors are mainly Europe-based, who include a Scandinavian pension fund.

High net worth individuals with appetite for risk have also invested. “We saw the entry of one of the 10 richest people in the world last month, but only with $100,000,” said Englund.

The ISX, with a current market value of $2 billion, declined significantly in 2006 (as did most other markets in the Middle East) by 37 per cent, but gained 37 per cent in 2007.

More importantly for foreign investors, as security marginally improved over the past year, trading picked up as well. Volumes increased 250 per cent to $354m from 2006 to 2007. The value of these trades remain small by any standard – November last year was an especially busy month when a total of $52m was traded over 10 sessions.

With the lack of depth and transparency in the market, and the rampant corruption across the economy, Englund directs most of the fund’s capital into the banking sector, which represents about 75 per cent of the total market cap and the volumes traded in Iraq. Banks are also the “best regulated sector and have least corruption in Iraq”, he said, although he said there are a number of “really high risk banks” listed on the exchange.

Understanding these risks in an environment that lacks reliable information is what justifies the fund’s fees. “We have analysts on the ground based in Erbil,” Englund said.

The quality of public data is “pretty bad, and we do not know as many pieces of the puzzle as you will know in developed markets, however, we think we have enough to make an educated guess.”

The dearth of information is so entrenched that amazingly a large number of banks in Iraq do not even have websites and many main contacts at the banks use Yahoo! e-mail. But the sector and the Babylon Fund are doing fine.

Last year the Bank of Baghdad and Iraqi Middle East Investment Bank stocks, which the fund holds, rose 55 per cent and 39 per cent, respectively. Englund believes there is much upside in Iraqi stocks this year and expects to achieve similar gains for his fund. He will continue investing in the banking sector, and predicts Commercial Bank of Iraq (CBIQ) – with a cap of $60m – will double by the end of the year. Given that Babylon Fund doubled in size in 2007, perhaps Iraq is where the smart money will go this year.

Daring investors put faith in Iraqi stocks ->Emirates Business 24|7

Iraq Oil Minister: Hoping To Pass Oil Law This Year - AFP

Iraq's oil minister spoke Tuesday of the government's determination to pass a draft oil law this year, and said he hoped to ramp up production to 2.9 million barrels a day by the end of the year.

"We hope 2008 will see the enactment of the oil and gas law," Hussein al- Shahristani said, on the sidelines of a conference in London.

Having been unable to negotiate long-term contracts with the Iraqi government, major energy companies have instead hammered out technical support deals.

Al-Shahristani said that the technical support contracts would be associated with long-term oil deals, but he didn't give details on the link between the two.

He added, however, that "the licensing round will be fair, transparent and public."

Five years from now, Iraq hopes to nearly triple its current levels of oil production to around 6 million barrels a day, al-Shahristani said.

Iraq currently produces about 2.4 million barrels of oil a day, and exports approximately 2 million barrels, above the levels of production before the U.S.- led invasion of the country in April 2003, thanks to "significant improvements recently (in security)", the minister said.

He added that Iraq hoped to ramp up oil production by half a million barrels to 2.9 million barrels a day.

Iraq's oil reserves - the world's third largest - lie in the Kurdish north and Shiite south.

Washington considers the adoption of an Iraqi oil law to be a key benchmark in its attempts to measure progress in the country.

The draft law, which aims to equitably distribute Iraq's oil revenues among the country's 18 provinces, is a sensitive subject in Iraq, which has been rocked with violence.

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Opinion piece......

International law expert confirms KRG’s authority to manage oil & gas resources
Ministry for Natural Resources

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has received an expert independent legal opinion that confirms the KRG’s constitutional authority to manage the Kurdistan Region’s oil and gas resources.

The KRG asked for a formal independent legal opinion from Professor James R. Crawford, a professor of international law, through Clifford Chance, a multinational legal firm.

Professor Crawford concluded, “The Kurdistan Region Oil and Gas Law is consistent with the Constitution of Iraq”.

He also concluded, “Existing contracts entered into by the KRG for oil and gas exploration and exploitation since 1992 are valid unless they conflict with the Constitution. Pending agreement between the KRG and the federal government on strategic policies, the authority of the KRG to authorise the conclusion and implementation of new contracts is unqualified.”

Dr Ashti Hawrami, the Kurdistan Regional Government Minister for Natural Resources, said, “We have never had any doubt about our constitutional right to manage the Kurdistan Region’s oil and gas resources, and we are pleased that this independent legal opinion confirms that our actions are in full compliance with Constitution.”

International law expert confirms KRG’s authority to manage oil & gas resources | Iraq Updates

UN transfers millions from oil-for-food
The UN has transferred $161 million from oil-for-food program to Iraq.

The United Nations has transferred $161 million from the defunct oil-for-food program to a development program for Iraq, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday.

In a letter to the Security Council, Ban said the U.N. will continue to transfer "unencumbered funds" to the Development Fund for Iraq as it continues the process of terminating the oil-for-food program, found to be riddled with corruption.

The program, which ran from 1996 to 2003, was aimed at easing Iraqi suffering under U.N. sanctions imposed after Saddam's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. It allowed Iraq to sell oil provided the bulk of the proceeds were used to buy food, medicine and other humanitarian goods and pay war reparations.

But an 18-month investigation led by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, found massive corruption in the program. Its final report in October 2005 accused more than 2,200 companies from some 40 countries of colluding with Saddam Hussein's regime to bilk the humanitarian program in Iraq of $1.8 billion.

Ban reported to the Security Council on a meeting in Jordan last month between U.N. officials and representatives of Iraq's Foreign Ministry and Central Bank, aimed at reducing the number of outstanding letters of credit from the oil-for-food program.

As of the end of 2007, he said there were 210 outstanding letters of credit valued at over $656 million. He urged Iraqi ministries to resolve outstanding claims before March 31 and said the working group would meet again in March.

Ban said a reserve of $187 million and a balance of$225 million would be retained in the oil-for-food account until all remaining issues have been resolved.

UN transfers millions from oil-for-food | Iraq Updates