Thread: Archive News - Iraqi Dinar Think Tank - 24/01/201 - 23/07/2011

New Iraq Oil Prices for May

Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organisation (SOMO) has adjusted its official selling prices for its Basra Light and Kirkuk crude grades for March. In common with some other countries, Iraq’s oil is priced relative to regional benchmark prices:

• For shipments to US, contracts are priced are relative to the Argus Sour Crude Index (ASCI);
• Shipments to Europe are priced relative the North Sea Spot BFOE; and
• Asian shipmentas are priced relative to the Dubai-Oman crude benchmark, published by Platts, the energy-information division of McGraw-Hill.

The new prices to Europe are as follows:

• Kirkuk crude to Europe will sell at a premium of $4.00 a barrel relative to the North Sea (Dated Brent) benchmark, up $6.85 cents from April;
• Basra Light to Europe will sell at a discount of $6.50 a barrel to Dated Brent, down $1.90.

And to the US:

• Basrah Light will sell at a $1.95 discount to the U.S. benchmark, down 30 cents from April;
• Kirkuk will sell at a premium of 40 cents above the benchmark, an increase of 20 cents.

To Asia:

• Basrah Light to Asia will sell at a discount of 15 cents a barrel below the benchmark, an drop of 45 cents.

http://www.iraq-businessnews.com/201...rices-for-may/

Iraqi Communications Announces extinguish the debt landlines

Minister of Communications Iraq on Thursday, turning off all the debt of telephone lines ground since 2003 and until the time prompter, R. unveiled for the determination of his ministry to establish a number of projects in the province of Babylon in order to develop the telecommunications sector in it.

Said Mohammed Tawfik Allawi, during a press conference held today in the province of Babylon, and was attended by the correspondent of news agency Kurdistan (Rn) that "the Ministry of Communications has completed all actions required on the exemption of citizens of the debt of Telecom landlines, it was agreed finally to put them out."

He said "We are waiting the decision of the Council of Ministers formally, the judge turn off all the debt of phone lines since the ground in 2003 until the present time."

Allawi disclosed that "run 80 thousand land line in Babylon during the month of the modern system of HDN, the lines currently operating in the province are running the old TDN."

And "The Ministry agreed with the Government of Babylon, the local cost-sharing project to provide Internet service to all citizens, through a network of YPAI which will start on it soon," noting that he "will be linked to e-government in the Babel network, the federal government in Baghdad."

The Minister of Communications to the "The ministry agreed on the construction of complex unified communications in Babylon, where the provincial government has allocated a land area of ​​10000 square meters for this purpose," explaining that "the ministry is keen to build housing complexes for its personnel in all Iraqi provinces, including Babylon."

In a question to the reporter (Rn) on the high costs of communication between landline and mobile phone networks operating in Iraq, the Minister Allawi that "the responsibility of the Telecommunications Authority as the entity that signed contracts for mobile phone companies."

http://www.aknews.com/ar/aknews/2/232094/

Tourism announces the arrival of European tourists to Iraq in May next

Revealed the Ministry of State for Tourism and Antiquities, Wednesday, for the imminent arrival of a European tour group in the country for sightseeing, religious and archaeological sites, confirmed that the group's fourth visit to Iraq, a European group.

He said a ministerial statement that next May will see the arrival of a tourist group to Iraq consists of 23 tourists from different European nationalities, indicating that it is the fourth hit Iraq after the arrival of the third group last week, which included 16 tourists.

He explained that the tour group will visit a number of areas of archaeological, tourist and religious in the country, according to a preset program, pointing out that the two sets of five new ministries of Iraq in February and March two years.


http://ar.radionawa.com/Detail.aspx?id=2857&LinkID=197

Iraq’s Progress Depends on Foreign Expertise

Perhaps the most positive news out of Iraq in the past week came late on Wednesday, as the Canadian-based explorer ShaMaran Petroleum announced a major oil discovery at its Atrush-1 well in Kurdistan. ShaMaran has an 80% stake in the project, with Marathon Oil Corp holding the remaining 20%.

The news comes as Baghdad and Erbil make further progress on the management of the country’s oil and gas resources. Revenues from Iraq’s energy sector have enabled the country to spend $400m on the renovation of one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces in the capital, which will be used to host the Arab League Summit in May.

Sadly, for foreign visitors who are not heads of state, problems with visas persist. The Basra Investment Commission now reserves the right to attend job interviews as an observer, and we are hearing reports that entry visa holders are now being required to pay an additional $82 fee at the airport.

If the Iraqi authorities want to see more discoveries like yesterday’s find at Atrush-1, they must not put obstacles in the way of foreign expertise trying to enter the country.

http://www.iraq-businessnews.com/201...ign-expertise/

Iraq: a fourth round of oil licenses end of the year

Iraqi Oil Ministry said on Wednesday that the launch of the fourth round of oil licensing will be the end of this year, indicating that the ministry is engaged on the completion of legal procedures before starting the tour.

He said ministry spokesman Assem Jihad told the Kurdish news agency (Rn), "The Oil Ministry has identified the end of this year as the date for the start of the fourth round of oil licensing," noting that "The ministry will be 12 locations in the round."

Jihad said that "The ministry is engaged to complete the legal procedures on the fourth round of licensing," noting that "The trip did not take long overdue and it is going according to legal frameworks set by the ministry."

The Iraqi Oil Minister Abdel Karim coffee has announced the beginning of the current for his willingness to launch a fourth round of licenses to foreign companies dedicated to invest 12 exploration blocks in the areas of crude oil and gas.

And floats on a sea of ​​oil, and has the third largest reserves in the world, after it announced the Iraqi Oil Ministry in October last increase oil reserves by 25 per cent to 143.1 billion barrels from 115 billion barrels.

The giant international companies in the energy field has won contracts to extract Iraqi oil reserves through three licensing rounds, including undiscovered oil fields untapped.

Although the Iraqi government predicted the arrival of its crude oil production to about 12 million barrels per day over the next five years, but experts have questioned the production and access to that goal, and said that seven million barrels a day was a reasonable figure.

And exceeded exports of Iraqi oil earlier this year to two million barrels per day ceiling, the first time since its invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

http://www.aknews.com/ar/aknews/2/231853/

U.S. - Iraq Business Initiative Briefing with Dr. Sinan Al-Shabibi

Date Event: April 19, 2011

Herman Lay Room
U.S. Chamber of Commerce
1615 H St, NW
Washington, DC, 20062
10:45 AM - 12:30 PM

Briefing from the Central Bank Governor of Iraq to members of the business community on Iraq's finance sector.

http://www.uschamber.com/events/us-i...nan-al-shabibi

Donald Trump: US can make a fortune from Iraq Oil

Trump noted that Iraq had 15 trillion dollars worth of oil reserves second only to Saudi Arabia. Trump said that if the US were to get its hands on some of that oil, it could make money and pay back its allies like the UK for their involvement in the Iraqi invasion and occupation.

Trump said that the US financial cost of invading and occupying Iraq totals $1.5 trillion. To justify taking Iraq oil Trump said that if the US were to leave Iran would invade taking over the country and its oil. It would be a bad idea to let the oil fall into the hands of the Iranians.

If the US takes control of Iraqi oil, Trump said he would give some of the oil revenues to Iraq and some of it to the US and its allies. It is arrogance such as this that keeps those such as Moqtada Al Sadr in business and popular in Iraq.

Although the U.S. tried hard from the very first to privatize oil in Iraq and made sure they protected the oil ministry after the occupation while a museum of antiquities was looted they were unsuccessful. The Iraqis resisted. There is still no oil law federally one of the benchmarks of progress set by the occupiers.

The Iraqis have entered into production sharing agreements (PSA's) but through a competitive bidding process so that several countries have won rights to develop Iraqi oil. The idea that the U.S. can somehow just seize control of Iraqi oil is presumptuous, arrogant, and exactly the sort of thing that confirms that the U.S. intent in occupation is always oil.

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed...-from-iraq-oil

Iraqi Oil Production Hits Highest Level Since 2001

BMI View: Although significant scope exists for Iraq to build on its rising crude production, several risks could yet prevent its achieving its ambitious goals.

While media attention over the past few months has focused on the suspension of crude exports from Libya and the general unrest across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, Iraq has been busy boosting its oil production to the highest level since 2001. In its March 2011 Oil Market Report, released on April 11, the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimated Iraqi crude oil production at 2.69mn barrels per day (b/d) in March 2011 and 2.73mn b/d in February 2011.

Given estimated January 2011 production of 2.66mn b/d, that would suggest a Q111 production average of 2.69mn b/d. This compares favourably with a Q110 production average of 2.38mn b/d, based on IEA data. On an annual basis, Iraq has succeeded in boosting its average output by about 410,000b/d since April 2010. Additionally, its 'sustainable production capacity,' i.e. output that can be brought onstream within 30 days and maintained for 90 days, has gone up from 2.5mn b/d to 2.75mn b/d over the same period.

These are significant feats given Iraq's multiplicity of political, security and technical challenges. Baghdad has said that it hopes to achieve ...

http://www.oilandgasinsight.com/file...ince-2001.html

Finance: the completion of investigations on the misappropriation of the amount of $ 17 billion dinars from one of the branches (of Iraq)

Ministry of Finance announced it had completed investigations on the issue of misappropriation of funds from a branch of Bank of Iraq $ 17 billion dinars. An official source in Ministry of Finance a statement to the reporter Agency (news), said that "the inspector general at the ministry referred a number of staff to the Integrity Commission on Asktmal background investigations on the embezzlement took place in one of the branches of Bank of Iraq $ 17 billion dinars."

He added that "This operation was conducted by investors in collaboration with staff in the bank through the instruments without the expense."

The source said "investigations are ongoing, so far with the second group accused in this matter, but only these details without revealing the number of staff involved or the name of a bank branch Iraq because of its impact on the investigation.

He was president of the Electronic British had previously expressed his surprise at the increasing cases of embezzlement major financial within the banks Iraqi government even though his company provided the institutions concerned Iraqi regime Serafi comprehensive electronic sophisticated sponsor to prevent any attempt of this kind, pointing out that government agencies refuse to recognize and run the project since nearly a year, and the Iraqi banks have seen in previous cases of embezzlement, including what happened in the Branch Bank of Iraq in Basra province, and the Bank of Iraq branch lighthouse in the Kurdistan region of Iraq where the embezzlement of $ 500 thousand.

"

And across Shirko Abid, head of the company (my. Blanc) British surprise that the Iraqi government there views on the management of the financial side of Iraq (deliberately) not receiving a larger e-banking projects in the Middle East, where the means to reveal the financial manipulations.

The head of the company "The company provided the Iraqi government banks to the project under the plan seemed to work out since 2007."

He pointed out that the project e-banking is a system developed very applicable in the largest financial institutions worldwide, which guarantees to prevent any case of embezzlement may occur regardless of the accuracy of the perpetrators, there is a link inclusive of all branches of public administration and any dealings by their staff to be open automatically to the Department .

He added that the project has e-banking pros are endless, even now we find the Iraqi banks to deal with paper and there is routine fought in the simplest of transactions and difficulty in clearing system and banking, but under the overall system ends a lot of episodes, and the procedure used to take weeks or more is in a few seconds.

The Abed that the project has been implemented fully, and that his company has fulfilled all its obligations, noting that there are episodes of certain of the Ministry of Finance put obstacles in the way he took off and on, and it is puzzling that government officials speak of the development work and development, but actually points to the contrary, did not we see from During our dealings with them have no desire to progress, and this will increase the problems of Iraq in its dealings with the investment portfolio, and urged foreign investors not to deal with Iraq because of his policies.

http://translate.google.com/translat...iew_11815.html

Associates of the Maysan Oil Company, demonstrating their general manager, demanding sacking

Hundreds of employees of the Maysan Oil Company today at the company site and the streets around the building demanding the removal of the Director-General of the company.

The demonstrators raised banners calling for the removal of the accounting of what they called Balvasudain in the company also distributed a statement talked about the failure of the company's management in the formulation of plans and a clear and systematic approach to develop and increase the productive capacity of the Maysan Oil Company.

The statement noted: the absence of officials from the owners of integrity and technical competence are capable of administration to work with foreign companies, and the spread of financial and administrative corruption in the assignment of contracts with foreign companies, including contracts for the drilling of twenty wells in the Bazerkan with Odhir Ford U.S. held company Oil Cerf and the recurrence of such legal violations, in addition to the existence of financial corruption with the Chinese company implemented to develop the field Halfayah and indifference, or to provide support to the national effort in drilling operations.

The statement added: There is a collusion of the Board of Directors and General Manager of the company in the case of residential buildings occupied by unlawfully senior staff, and non-equitable distribution of Aivadat of Foreign Affairs, and the waste of hundreds of millions of money as a result of errors for people who are qualified through the drilling and reclamation of wells failed and not to conduct an investigation with negligent and corrupt, and widespread nepotism and clientelism in the mechanics of hiring and spending public money on issues of form and transform the company's headquarters to the complex of buildings scattered at the expense of increased production rates.

The statement called for removal of Director General of the Maysan Oil Company and the sacking of managers bodies and departments are corrupt and incompetent and the election of the elements of efficient and fair in order to raise the profile of the oil industry in the province.

The event was attended by Chairman of the provincial council in Maysan, Abdul Hussein al-Saedi, who said that the Council will examine in detail the demands of the demonstrators and to hold negligent and corrupt who are found Tqbarhm.

http://www.ipairaq.com/index.php?nam...onomy&id=37655