Thread: Iraq/Dinar News. 09/05 to 01/14/07

Originally Posted by CharmedPiper

"Iraqi consumers get oil and food that is government subsidized, so the rise in the dinar won't have an immediate effect on them and the economy. It will take some time. But as Iraqis realize the value of the dinar is rising, they will stop immediately exchanging their currency into dollars," he told The Associated Press.

Gang, you all Know, what this means. Sounds like it will adventually, if not very soon, have to be at least even to the Dollar. That is the only way, I would hang on to them. Why would they say this if the dinar was not going to be worth more? Great Article Posted CP.

Originally Posted by danny51

So hey Inscrutable, are we to surmise that you are not invested in Iraqi dinars as you stated "your payoff" to Charmed? Or did I just read you wrong? Just curious, no slam against you.

A payoff for all invested but especially for those deserving or needing.

Originally Posted by shotgunsusie

friday, saturday, sunday, monday, tuesday = 5 days
saturday, sunday, monday, tuesday, wednesday = 5 days
sunday, monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday = 5 days

you pick which scenario you want them to get the oil law done in. they have 3 options if they can MAKE QUORUM.

I was referring to the review 3 times with 2 days between???

Originally Posted by Inscrutable

A payoff for all invested but especially for those deserving or needing.

You still didn't answer the question Inscrutable.....How about this....DO YOU OWN IRAQI DINARS?? yes or no????

Let's get this done!!!!

Posted by: saleem on Saturday, December 09, 2006 - 08:20 PM

Barzani-Visit
Negervan Barzani leaves for talks in Baghdad
By Abdul-Hamid Zibari
Arbil, Dec 9, (VOI) – Iraq's Kurdistan primer Negervan Barzani left Arbil on Saturday afternoon to Baghdad for a second round of talks with the central government on issues of oil investment, Kirkuk status and the budget, a source at Kurdistan government said.
"Mr. Negervan Barzani left Arbil today afternoon heading for Baghdad to resume the talks started several days ago with senior Iraqi officials in Baghdad," Mr. Muhammed Khushnaw, Kurdistan Primer's media spokesman told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).
"The Kurdistan government delegation will hold talks with the central government in Baghdad to resolve the lingering issues related to oil investment, the implementation of the constitution article 140 on Kirkuk and Kurdistan's share of the overall budget," Mr. Khushnaw said.
Iraq's Kurdistan Primer recently wrapped up a visit to Baghdad which he described in a news conference upon arrival to Arbil as "unfruitful."
The lingering issues include files of dispute between the central government and Kurdistan cabinet.
The Kurdistan government is keen on reaching an agreement over adopting a new mechanism for oil investment in the region away from Baghdad direct involvement, settling dispute over budget allocations to Kurdistan region as well as carrying out the constitution article 140 on Kirkuk.

I'm not sure if this has already been posted.
Kurdistan: Calibre Energy, Inc. Announces Update on First Well in Iraqi Kurdistan


The Bina-Bawi-1 is the first well in Calibre's planned multi-well exploration and development drilling program in Kurdistan.

Calibre Energy, Inc., an American-based independent natural gas and oil exploration and development company, announces the Bina-Bawi-1 exploration well was at a depth of 2,112 meters (6,929 feet) and has completed running 9 5/8" casing and is currently drilling ahead to a total depth estimated to be 2,900 meters (9,514 feet).
The Bina-Bawi-1 is the first well in Calibre's planned multi-well exploration and development drilling program in Kurdistan. The primary objectives of the well are the Cretaceous, the Qurachina Formation in the Triassic, and the Chiazaire Formation in the Permian.

Calibre is participating in the Bina-Bawi-1 through an Exploration and Production Sharing Agreement ("EPSA") with the Kurdistan Regional Government ("KRG") of the Republic of Iraq in the Arbil Province, covering the Bina-Bawi structure. Calibre has a 10 percent interest in the EPSA through a participation agreement with Hawler Energy Ltd., a privately-held oil and gas exploration company based in Houston, Texas. A&T Petroleum, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Turkish-based Petoil, is the operator.

While other parts of Iraq remain mired in violence and unrest, the semi- autonomous region of Kurdistan has been the most peaceful and stable region of Iraq since the creation of the no-fly zones in 1991.

The Bina-Bawi structure is a 28 kilometer by 7 kilometer anticline immediately northwest of the Taq-Taq Field where Genel Enerji and Addax Petroleum recently announced test results from the Taq-Taq 4 well which flowed at an initial aggregate maximum rate of 29,790 barrels per day from three separate reservoir intervals in the Cretaceous. The flow rates were reported to be constrained by the limited capacity of surface testing facilities.

Genel Enerji and Addax Petroleum are currently drilling an appraisal well and expect initial export of oil from the Taq Taq Field in 2007. Addax Petroleum in their November 2006 presentation estimated that the Taq Taq Field has current STOIP of 1.2 to 2.7 billion barrels with expected STOIP of 1.9 billion barrels.

Source: Calibre Energy, Inc

Iraq near oil deal on nationl oil law.

Iraqi officials are near agreement on a national oil law that would give the central government the power to distribute current and future oil revenues to the provinces or regions, based on their population, Iraqi and American officials say.

If enacted, the measure, drafted by a committee of politicians and ministers, could help resolve a highly divisive issue that has consistently blocked efforts to reconcile the country’s feuding ethnic and sectarian factions. Sunni Arabs, who lead the insurgency, have opposed the idea of regional autonomy for fear that they would be deprived of a fair share of the country’s oil wealth, which is concentrated in the Shiite south and Kurdish north.
The Iraq Study Group report stressed that an oil law guaranteeing an equitable distribution of revenues was crucial to the process of national reconciliation, and thus to ending the war.

Without such a law, it would also be impossible for Iraq to attract the foreign investment it desperately needs to bolster its oil industry.

Officials cautioned that this was only a draft agreement, and that it could still be undermined by the ethnic and sectarian squabbling that has jeopardized other political talks. The Iraqi Constitution, for example, was stalled for weeks over small wording conflicts, and its measures are often meaningless in the chaos and violence in Iraq today.

But a deal on the oil law could be reached within days, according to officials involved in the drafting. It would then go to the cabinet and Parliament for approval.
The major remaining stumbling block, officials said, concerns the issuing of contracts for developing future oil fields. The Kurds are insisting that the regions reserve final approval over such contracts, fearing that if that power were given to a Shiite-dominated central government, it could ignore proposed contracts in the Kurdish north while permitting them in the Shiite south, American and Iraqi officials said.

The national oil law lies at the heart of debates about the future of Iraq, particularly the issue of a strong central government versus robust regional governments. The oil question has also inflamed ethnic and sectarian tensions. Sunni Arabs, who preside over areas of the country that apparently have little or no oil, are adamant about the equitable distribution of oil revenues by the central government.

On the drafting committee, Sunni Arabs have allied with the Shiites against the Kurds, who have sought to maintain as much regional control as possible over the oil industry in their autonomous northern enclave. Iraqi Kurdistan has enjoyed de facto independence since 1991, when the American military established a no-flight zone above the mountainous region to prevent raids by Saddam Hussein.

Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the senior American commander here, and Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador, have urged Iraqi politicians to put the oil law at the top of their agendas, saying it must be passed before the year’s end.
The drafting committee is made up of ministers and politicians from the main Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish blocs in government. They began talks months ago, but the pace picked up recently, said an American official tracking the negotiations, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want to give the appearance of Western interference in sovereign Iraqi matters.

At the start of the talks, the Kurds fought to ensure that regional governments have the power to collect and distribute revenues from future fields, Iraqi and American officials said. They also proposed that revenues be shared among the regions based on both population and crimes committed against the people under Mr. Hussein’s rule. That would have given the Kurds and Shiites a share of the oil wealth larger than the proportions of their populations.

But the Kurds dropped those demands, said Barham Salih, a deputy prime minister who is a Kurd and the chairman of the committee.

“Revenue sharing is an accepted principle by all the constituent elements of the Iraqi government, including the Kurds, and that is the unifying element that we’re all hoping for in the oil law,” Mr. Salih said in an interview.

The American official said the Kurds were willing to make concessions because a national oil law could attract more foreign oil companies to exploration and development in Kurdistan. A large foreign oil company would have more confidence in signing a contract with the Kurds if it were to operate under the law of a sovereign country rather than just the law of an autonomous region.

Some Kurdish leaders also believe that the concessions are a worthwhile price to pay for having a stake in the much larger revenue pool of the country’s oil industry, the American official said. The southern fields accounted for 85 percent of total Iraqi crude production last year, partly because northern production was hampered by insurgent sabotage. The south has an estimated 65 percent of the country’s 115 billion barrels of proven reserves.

But the Kurds are still holding out on the issue of oil contracts, arguing that the Constitution guarantees the regions absolute rights in those matters. The Kurds recently discovered two new oil fields after signing exploration contracts with a Turkish company and a Norwegian company.

“There are those among us who say we cannot go back to the former days of centralization, which were not conducive to good business practice and to the idea of federalism that is enshrined in the Constitution,” Mr. Salih said.

In its recommendations released Wednesday, the Iraq Study Group took the opposite tack, to the anger of the Kurds. The report said that “no formula that gives control over revenues from future fields to the regions or gives control of oil fields to the regions is compatible with national reconciliation.” Though the Kurds have ceded their position on the issue of future revenues, they are fighting for control over the development of future fields.

The drafting committee met Thursday night to try to resolve the contract issue, but could not reach an agreement.

Distributing revenues by population could be a difficult matter without a reliable census, which Iraq lacks. Sunni Arabs often claim they are at least 60 percent of the population, not the 20 percent that is commonly cited. The Shiites are generally estimated to be 60 percent of the population, and the Kurds 20 percent. The American official said a national census expected to be taken next year should determine the share of revenue that goes to each province or region.

If doing a census next year is too politically fraught, or if security conditions prevent it, then revenues could be distributed to provincial or regional governments according to the household counts used by Mr. Hussein’s government to distribute rations in the 1990s.

The Kurds have insisted that revenues collected by the central government should be put into an account that automatically redistributes the money into sub-accounts dedicated to the provinces or regions. This approach could be written into the national oil law or into a separate law, the American official said.

The working draft of the oil law re-establishes the state-run Iraq National Oil Company, which was founded in 1964 to oversee oil production but was shut down by Mr. Hussein in 1987. The company would operate using a business model and not through a government budget process. Iraqi and American officials say that would make management of oil production more efficient and separate it from the Oil Ministry, which has been rife with corruption.

The North and South Oil Companies, which currently manage production in their regions, would fall under the umbrella of the Iraq National Oil Company. Any exports would still be sold through a state marketing company.

The law also sets production thresholds for creating new regional companies. A province or region, for example, might have to show it can produce 100,000 barrels a day before a company can be created there. Officials in Maysan Province in the south have already said they want to start a company.

Source: NY Times

This is great stuff.

According to a recent paper published last November by Dow Jones after the world economic forum in the dead sea, Iraq's income from oil exports for this year was at 35 billion dollars with a 14.3% increase from last year's total.

And that if oil export levels retain the current level and under stable prices, the coming year will witness a record income that was never reached in the history of modern Iraq and revenues will jump up to 40 billion dollars; a huge figure given the humble plans of the government and a figure that will put the government in a position where it must come up with new and ambitious plans to match the new revenue figures.
In fact and from what can be read in papers and heard from official statements it seems most government departments failed to spend the funds allocated by the government for those departments to execute their projects.

That's not because of security challenges only since there are several regions in the country that are relatively stable and where work can be done but more because of bureaucracy and corruption that make it extremely difficult to implement plans and make sure the money is spent in the right direction.

I think this was what pushed the government to announce a number of new measures to cope with the condition, perhaps the easiest measure to come up with was to announce plans for massive raises for civil servants; according to al-Sabah the raise will be as high as 60% of current payments in some cases, especially to those with lower incomes.

Another announcement followed soon, yesterday al-Sabah brought the news that the parliament is discussing a suggestion to set aside 30% of oil sales income to distribute among the citizens of Iraq. The draft law sets 3 classes of payments according to age and subsequent needs and responsibilities; from one month to 6 years, from 6 to 18 years and the third one 19 years and older.

People who migrated from Iraq, those with salaries higher that 1 million dinars/month and convicted criminals will be excluded from the payment program, the report added.

The people here met the news with some delight, hope and some skepticism too although the announcement came through the government's paper.

If this plan comes to materialize I think it can reflect positively on the security situation to some extent. The economy is part of the problem and also part of the solution and the government should move forward with reforms that involve economy and infrastructure as well as, of course and above all, security.

I personally like the idea of distributing the money directly among the population because I believe the people are more capable of making good use of that money than the government and instead of having billions lost to corruption and mismanagement that money will be used to revive the market and reduce the government's control over the economy. Plus, it will give people the sense that they do have an actual and visible share of their country's riches.

The private sector in Iraq had witnessed giant leaps immediately after the fall of Saddam; that could be seen in the form of the thousands of private businesses that were established in the course of the past three years and that had a direct positive effect on the standards of living after long years of deprivation.

It's worth mentioning that between 1946 and the beginning of 2003 a total of 8374 businesses were registered while between April 2003 and the end of 2005 more than 20,000 have been registered. During last month alone 286 new businesses were added.

Such statistics seem quite extraordinary under the current security situation which sadly continues to overshadow and limits further improvement of this aspect of life in Iraq.

On the other hand, the exchange rate of the Iraqi dinar improved significantly in the past few weeks and is now at 1410/$1 instead of 1480/1$ in early November. I am no economy expert but this looks like a good sign; it improves the purchase ability of people who get paid in dinar, which is the vast majority of course and at the same time it serves to reassure the people of the value of the national currency.

Let's imagine if the government intensifies its efforts in this direction and takes some candid and well-studied steps to offer a convenient environment for business and investment particularly in Baghdad, the heart of the country's economy. A lot of progress can be made, especially that the foreign investment law has been instated and approved which by the way looks like a good paper. This economic activity can move Iraq forward in a matter of few years and the country can catch up with what it missed.

The potential is huge; a stable climate is the key to unleash that potential.

Originally Posted by OneShotOneKill

I was referring to the review 3 times with 2 days between???

laws in iraq go through 3 readings with a day break in between to think. on the third review or reading they take a vote and either pass or reject the new law. an article stated on thursday that the oil law had went to parliament although all the articles since then have denied that. dont be surprised if it is indeed in front of parliament and has had its first reading already.

Originally Posted by michael16

Iraq near oil deal on nationl oil law.

Iraqi officials are near agreement on a national oil law that would give the central government the power to distribute current and future oil revenues to the provinces or regions, based on their population, Iraqi and American officials say.

If enacted, the measure, drafted by a committee of politicians and ministers, could help resolve a highly divisive issue that has consistently blocked efforts to reconcile the country’s feuding ethnic and sectarian factions. Sunni Arabs, who lead the insurgency, have opposed the idea of regional autonomy for fear that they would be deprived of a fair share of the country’s oil wealth, which is concentrated in the Shiite south and Kurdish north.
The Iraq Study Group report stressed that an oil law guaranteeing an equitable distribution of revenues was crucial to the process of national reconciliation, and thus to ending the war.

Without such a law, it would also be impossible for Iraq to attract the foreign investment it desperately needs to bolster its oil industry.

Officials cautioned that this was only a draft agreement, and that it could still be undermined by the ethnic and sectarian squabbling that has jeopardized other political talks. The Iraqi Constitution, for example, was stalled for weeks over small wording conflicts, and its measures are often meaningless in the chaos and violence in Iraq today.

But a deal on the oil law could be reached within days, according to officials involved in the drafting. It would then go to the cabinet and Parliament for approval.
The major remaining stumbling block, officials said, concerns the issuing of contracts for developing future oil fields. The Kurds are insisting that the regions reserve final approval over such contracts, fearing that if that power were given to a Shiite-dominated central government, it could ignore proposed contracts in the Kurdish north while permitting them in the Shiite south, American and Iraqi officials said.

The national oil law lies at the heart of debates about the future of Iraq, particularly the issue of a strong central government versus robust regional governments. The oil question has also inflamed ethnic and sectarian tensions. Sunni Arabs, who preside over areas of the country that apparently have little or no oil, are adamant about the equitable distribution of oil revenues by the central government.

On the drafting committee, Sunni Arabs have allied with the Shiites against the Kurds, who have sought to maintain as much regional control as possible over the oil industry in their autonomous northern enclave. Iraqi Kurdistan has enjoyed de facto independence since 1991, when the American military established a no-flight zone above the mountainous region to prevent raids by Saddam Hussein.

Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the senior American commander here, and Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador, have urged Iraqi politicians to put the oil law at the top of their agendas, saying it must be passed before the year’s end.
The drafting committee is made up of ministers and politicians from the main Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish blocs in government. They began talks months ago, but the pace picked up recently, said an American official tracking the negotiations, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want to give the appearance of Western interference in sovereign Iraqi matters.

At the start of the talks, the Kurds fought to ensure that regional governments have the power to collect and distribute revenues from future fields, Iraqi and American officials said. They also proposed that revenues be shared among the regions based on both population and crimes committed against the people under Mr. Hussein’s rule. That would have given the Kurds and Shiites a share of the oil wealth larger than the proportions of their populations.

But the Kurds dropped those demands, said Barham Salih, a deputy prime minister who is a Kurd and the chairman of the committee.

“Revenue sharing is an accepted principle by all the constituent elements of the Iraqi government, including the Kurds, and that is the unifying element that we’re all hoping for in the oil law,” Mr. Salih said in an interview.

The American official said the Kurds were willing to make concessions because a national oil law could attract more foreign oil companies to exploration and development in Kurdistan. A large foreign oil company would have more confidence in signing a contract with the Kurds if it were to operate under the law of a sovereign country rather than just the law of an autonomous region.

Some Kurdish leaders also believe that the concessions are a worthwhile price to pay for having a stake in the much larger revenue pool of the country’s oil industry, the American official said. The southern fields accounted for 85 percent of total Iraqi crude production last year, partly because northern production was hampered by insurgent sabotage. The south has an estimated 65 percent of the country’s 115 billion barrels of proven reserves.

But the Kurds are still holding out on the issue of oil contracts, arguing that the Constitution guarantees the regions absolute rights in those matters. The Kurds recently discovered two new oil fields after signing exploration contracts with a Turkish company and a Norwegian company.

“There are those among us who say we cannot go back to the former days of centralization, which were not conducive to good business practice and to the idea of federalism that is enshrined in the Constitution,” Mr. Salih said.

In its recommendations released Wednesday, the Iraq Study Group took the opposite tack, to the anger of the Kurds. The report said that “no formula that gives control over revenues from future fields to the regions or gives control of oil fields to the regions is compatible with national reconciliation.” Though the Kurds have ceded their position on the issue of future revenues, they are fighting for control over the development of future fields.

The drafting committee met Thursday night to try to resolve the contract issue, but could not reach an agreement.

Distributing revenues by population could be a difficult matter without a reliable census, which Iraq lacks. Sunni Arabs often claim they are at least 60 percent of the population, not the 20 percent that is commonly cited. The Shiites are generally estimated to be 60 percent of the population, and the Kurds 20 percent. The American official said a national census expected to be taken next year should determine the share of revenue that goes to each province or region.

If doing a census next year is too politically fraught, or if security conditions prevent it, then revenues could be distributed to provincial or regional governments according to the household counts used by Mr. Hussein’s government to distribute rations in the 1990s.

The Kurds have insisted that revenues collected by the central government should be put into an account that automatically redistributes the money into sub-accounts dedicated to the provinces or regions. This approach could be written into the national oil law or into a separate law, the American official said.

The working draft of the oil law re-establishes the state-run Iraq National Oil Company, which was founded in 1964 to oversee oil production but was shut down by Mr. Hussein in 1987. The company would operate using a business model and not through a government budget process. Iraqi and American officials say that would make management of oil production more efficient and separate it from the Oil Ministry, which has been rife with corruption.

The North and South Oil Companies, which currently manage production in their regions, would fall under the umbrella of the Iraq National Oil Company. Any exports would still be sold through a state marketing company.

The law also sets production thresholds for creating new regional companies. A province or region, for example, might have to show it can produce 100,000 barrels a day before a company can be created there. Officials in Maysan Province in the south have already said they want to start a company.

Source: NY Times

and there has been more than one article which stated that it has indeed ALREADY been handed to parliament. that one article posted a couple days ago stated it was BEFORE PARLIAMENT. misinformation campaign rolls on...