Report of the West: in Iraq ... A lot of black gold and a little prosperity

Date posted 27/06/2012 11:42 PM
London-"arenas"

The pipeline stretching to the Gulf near Basra, Iraq dumped by wealth, and transform the country into one of the biggest oil exporters in the world. In the meantime, the Australian company; leyton offshore Offshore Leighton, install additional oil floats for mobilization of Iraqi crude oil tankers bumper.

He claims the country has reserves of up to 143 billion barrels; any one of the largest in the world. In April, Iraq has exported up to more than 2.5 million barrels a day; more than any time since the 1980s, exp Treasury nearly $ 9 billion. Total production at present less than 3 million barrels a day, according to the Organization of petroleum exporting countries (OPEC) oil producers Club is.


In the oil port

According to a report published by the Economist famous in about two weeks ago, there was a further download floats under construction. With oil companies invest billions of dollars in Iraq, the industry flourish. And with the end of the year, says Peter Hitchens, analyst at Bank, HSBC, production will reach 3.5 million barrels a day: in a dose of new oil to calm the cosmic markets.
And keep production targets Iraq bolder looking. Says Hussain Shahristani, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister for energy, there are contracts with foreign oil companies, which must increase production to an unfamiliar number stands at 12 million barrels per day by the year 2017, a level that would put Iraq on a par with Saudi Arabia, both of oil if you keep crude prices at recent rises as a global spending.

But it is unlikely that comes close to Iraq. Saudi Arabia has spent 80 years building its petroleum industry, taking advantage of the relative peace and stability. But Iraq did not enjoy any of the two. Sectarian violence continues to plague the country.

Resulted in a series of bombings that took place on 13 June to killed more than 80 people. And with the Government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki back to a weak coalition. After years of negotiations, the Iraq oil law is not available, leaving thorny and difficult conflicts between the Federal Government and the territories over the control of oil revenues. In the meantime, says Keith Myers, Adviser at the Institute of "Watch" which works with the Iraqi Parliament to develop petroleum law: "all this has happened against the background of the latest progress in bad performance".

Although the country's oil wealth and extracting cheap raw cost Iraq can hardly provide a feature that has always dictated by foreign oil companies, such as BP and Royal Dutch Shell "and" lkoil "when it signed deals to develop its fields. This could impede the disturbance and crime operations of these companies. Disappeared overnight freight cars which had been used by one of the companies of the seismic survey recently. In the meantime, called graft a lot of deals. Classified Group Transparency International; active group of Berlin-based Iraq ranked 175 out of 182 countries in its measurements of corruption last year.

The parent company of Leighton investigates whether illegal payments were made to secure contracts in Iraq.

With the exception of the narrow coastline near Basra, Iraq remain confined to land. Therefore, apart from the new download floats that any increase in export capacity will depend on pipelines to be in neighbouring countries. There is one period from Kirkuk to the Turkish port Kayhan;, but with difficulty. Other options are more difficult. In recent years, Governments in Baghdad and Damascus on a new pipeline to Banias on the Syrian coast, but the war in Syria make it unlikely for the time being. The pipeline to a port in Arabic Saudi Arabia was closed when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. Currently, Saudi Arabia is using to transport natural gas, and oil will not leave for a competitor.

Thus, the bottleneck for export from Iraq's ambitious production targets elusive. Mr. Hitchens predicts that Iraqi production up to 7 million barrels per day by the end of the Decade-high, but remains less than America today. At a certain point, Iraq plans to return and join the complex system of sharecropping in OPEC, which may also lead to the identification and more exports.

There are two other themes have the potential to undermine Iraqi production.

Some analysts believe that Iran; a competing product made by sanctions devastate increasingly has to use its influence to ignite more unrest in Iraq. But do satisfy Arab Iraqis that they destroy your prosperity already for the benefit of the Persians who participate with them in religion?

In the meantime, the northern Iraqi Kurdistan Autonomous dozens of oil contracts with foreign companies outside the control of the Central Government. While the region's oil is lower than it is, but the southern production-sharing agreements before the investors remain much more alluring. Company Exxon Mobil last year had signed contracts to explore for oil in several complexes, arguing that the deal is good enough to risk exposing themselves to the exclusion of the West Qurna oil field in southern Iraq. And many opportunities to find competitors hold similar deals.

Kurdish leaders believe that with large companies to engage in, they will be able to build their own oil. The Government has proposed in Afghanistan a new pipeline to Turkey, allowing to bypass it, which dates back to the Central Government, but this action can be seen as a step towards achieving the Kurdish separatism and abandon federal Iraq and create more factional fighting. Turkey may be unwilling to support such a move, at least in the light of the problem of Kurdish population and well thought-out for unrest. Nevertheless, some influential businessmen supports in Turkey. The construction of this line depends of pipe end up on the approval of the Central Government on revenue-sharing mechanism and pass the oil law. But the chances of achieving that remains elusive.

Even with more production, Iraq remains far from secure enormous wealth. style While the cost of oil has licenses, the IMF suggests that the price of oil which Iraq needed to finance public spending over $ 100 a barrel, the highest in the region. Price has slipped below those originally threshold. If Iraqi production continued to climb, it could lead to further price declines.