Thread: Iraqi/Dinar news until March 1st, 2007

US touts Kurdish north as business gateway to Iraq


By Doug Palmer
Despite war and sectarian violence, Iraq still offers good business opportunities, particularly in the more secure northern region controlled by the Kurds, a top U.S. government official said on Tuesday.

"We've seen a boom in the IT (information technology) sector in last three years. In cell phones, in Internet hookups, there's been very rapid rise. So in some sectors, there's really been an explosive activity," Franklin Lavin, Commerce undersecretary for international trade, said.

The security situation in Baghdad makes it very difficult to encourage U.S. companies to establish operations there, Lavin said, but added that the Kurdish north had attracted billions of dollars in foreign investment since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Kurdish northern Iraq won autonomy from Saddam with U.S. help in 1991, and has benefited from more than a decade of economic development. While there has been some violence, it has not approached the levels seen in Baghdad.

Lavin spoke by phone from Arbil, the capital of the Kurdish region, where he and Iraqi Trade Minister Abdul Falah al-Sudany co-chaired the first meeting of the U.S.-Iraq Business Dialogue, a forum aimed at increasing two-way trade and investment ties.

While many may question investing in Iraq before the situation is more stable, "my view is it's really just the opposite," Lavin said.

"We need improvement in security, but also need an economic approach that allows for job creation, that allows for business start-ups, that allows for new product and expansion and gives people new opportunity and new hope."

"We really owe it to ourselves not to wait," he added.

There had been a relative lull in sectarian attacks in Baghdad since Iraqi and U.S. forces began a crackdown against sectarian violence, but dozens of people have been killed by car and truck bombs in recent days.

A second initiative called the Iraqi Business Gateway encourages U.S. companies to look at the Kurdistan region "as a gateway to the rest of Iraq," Lavin said.

"This part of Iraq tends to enjoy a very positive business environment, a very good security situation and also a very welcoming investment philosophy," Lavin said. "There's something humming here and you get a sense of vitality."

The United States exported nearly $1.5 billion of agricultural commodities, telecommunications equipment and other products to Iraq in 2006 and imported about $11.6 billion worth, mostly in oil, from the war-ravaged country.

Lavin said he expected the Iraqi government would soon finalize new regulations providing a legal framework for foreign oil companies to operate in Iraq.

Foreign firms eye new work in Iraq


By Steve Hirsch
The Bush administration is promoting business opportunities in Iraq as fighting rages on, with a senior Commerce Department official leading a mission there this week.

Sectors that focus on rebuilding, such as telecommunications and construction, offer significant opportunities for foreign companies.

Commerce Undersecretary for International Trade Franklin L. Lavin, whose mission began Monday and ends today, met with the Iraqi trade, housing and construction minister and the industry and minerals minister.

Despite current unrest, it is not too early to look into business possibilities, Mr. Lavin said by phone yesterday from Irbil, the largest city in Iraqi Kurdistan.

"Economic progress can be part of the solution, and we really owe it to ourselves not to wait until there's an improvement in security," he said.

"Part of what we are doing here, we think, fits in with the broader political goal of the United States of stabilizing the situation in Iraq," he said.

During the visit, the two sides started the U.S.-Iraq Business Dialogue, a mechanism bringing Iraqi and U.S. businesses together to discuss nuts-and-bolts business issues such as registering businesses, labor law flexibility and tariff issues.

The trip also saw the start of an effort to encourage companies to look at the Kurdistan region as a platform for economic activity and gateway to the rest of Iraq.

Mr. Lavin said it makes sense for some types of companies to look at Iraq, citing a boom in such sectors as information technology, as well as substantial regional activity, including a $300 million airport and a $400 million power plant.

He put the amount of investment in the Kurdistan region since the 2004 fall of Saddam Hussein "in the billions."

In addition, he said, "there's a lot exporting going on," noting that U.S. exports to Iraq reached $1.5 billion last year.

Exports for 2005 were about $1.4 billion, with more than half of that total coming from the cereals, electric machinery and nuclear reactors, boilers and machinery categories.

Simon Beard, head of business development for the Middle East at Nortel Networks, one of the companies on the trip, said he was upbeat about the possibilities in Iraq.

Nortel has been pursuing opportunities there and has closed contracts, including a $20 million deal to build an optical transmission network there.

"In the long term, we think this is a great market," he said, adding that regardless of its political future, Iraq will have oil revenue. And its infrastructure must be built from scratch.




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Posted on Thursday, February 22

Science ministry starts digitizing project


Ministry of science and technology has started digitizing project for the ministry as part of investment projects for this year.

Deputy Director of information technology department of the ministry said that the project lasting for two years would transform ministry of science to an electronic institution through connecting all its directorates to exchange data, archives and video conferences.He added that this project's target is to raise employment works to a higher rank and use technology to improve Iraqi institutions' productivity.
Source: Al Sabaah




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted on Thursday, February 22

Game on baby! Woot!

Independent Online Edition > Business Analysis & Features

By Saeed Shah
Published: 23 February 2007
We are about to find out if the invasion of Iraq really was a war for oil. The country is on the verge of passing a petroleum law, which will set down rules for investing in its oil industry. That will set off a race among the foreign oil giants, scrambling for their slice of Iraq's vast oil riches. Britain's two world-leading oil companies, BP and Shell, both say they want to enter Iraq. Exxon, ConocoPhillips, Total, Russia's Lukoil and the Chinese will also form part of the rush.

Even while the security situation in Iraq remains dire, it seems the prize will be just too great for the oil majors to resist. The country has proven reserves of 115 billion barrels of oil, around the same as Iran, but it is thought that its actual reserves could be anywhere up to 300 billion barrels - which would make it bigger than Saudi Arabia. Much of the west of Iraq remains unexplored.

John Teeling, chairman of Petrel Resources, the explorer listed on London's AIM market which has had interests in Iraq since 1997, says: "Iraq has 70 discovered, undeveloped fields. You'd die for any one of them. Even the small ones have a billion barrels. If this isn't the holy grail, it's right next door to it."

It is hard to exaggerate the scale of the opportunity in Iraq, especially given the fact that foreign companies are, essentially, shut out of the rest of the Middle East and Russia is increasingly hostile to international players.

"It costs $1 a barrel to get oil out in Iraq. If you're getting $60 for it, that's good economics. You don't have to go to Harvard to figure that out," Mr Teeling says.

War-torn Iraq is currently producing less than 2 million barrels a day, well down on the 2.8 million barrels before the 2003 invasion by the US and Britain.

Tariq Shafiq, a former executive in the Iraq National Oil company and one of the experts called in to draft the country's petroleum law, says Iraq could "very easily" get to 3.5 million barrels a day. He says it is "physically" capable of producing 10 million barrels a day - around the current output levels of Saudi Arabia, the pre-eminent producer today.

Mr Shafiq, who now works for the consultants Petrolog & Associates, says that foreign involvement in Iraq's oil industry is needed for its technical knowledge, not capital - given the high price of oil, investment is pretty much self-financing. "Iraq has been left behind," he says.

The former president Saddam Hussein cut Iraq off from foreign oil technology, first by pursuing the war with Iran in the 1980s, then the international sanctions of the 1990s. Advanced oil recovery techniques, such as water injection, passed the country by.

The petroleum law, which is now in its third draft and is expected to go before the Iraqi parliament soon, allows wide-ranging and deep involvement in the sector. It envisages three type of international contract - buy-backs, production-sharing agreements (PSAs) and service contracts.

The PSAs are the deals most favoured by big oil, as they allow the foreign company to book the reserves. Buy-back contracts typically require upfront investment from the international company, with a guaranteed rate of return to repay the money.

Mr Shafiq says that the draft law does not specify a figure for the permitted rate of return, it talks of a "fair" return. This he interprets as being no more than 20 per cent.

The law awards much power to the regions for negotiating contracts, with the central government given an oversight role, a feature that did not exist in the Mr Shafiq's original draft and one that he believes will play into the fracturing of Iraq. However, the oil revenues will be shared between the provinces, according to their populations, not their oil resources - that gives the oil-poor Sunni areas a big stake in the success of the industry.

While the oil industry's majors and super-majors are not currently in Iraq, the minnows such as Petrel and the Norwegian group DNO, which is actually producing oil in the relatively safe Kurdish north, have shown that it is possible to operate in the country.

The lack of a law setting out the rules for the oil industry and the extreme security problems have kept the big operators formally away. But they have been active behind the scenes and, once the petroleum law is enacted, it is expected that all of them will rush to the Iraq oil ministry's negotiating table.

Shell and BP, for instance, have obtained precious knowledge of two of Iraq's biggest oilfields by providing free assistance. These projects do not involve having company personnel on the ground in Iraq. BP has studied the reservoir data from the Rumaila field in the south, to advise on how to maximise future production.

BP says: "Once the security situation permits, and the Iraqis seek assistance, we would consider opportunities there, as we would elsewhere in the world."

Shell is currently undertaking a reservoir study of the Kirkuk field, in the north, "in order to assist the Ministry of Oil to enhance production from this field".

Shell is more forthright. It says: "Shell has a very long history of working in Iraq. We would welcome the opportunity to help Iraq re-build its energy industry, but we will only enter the country once security, living and working conditions are improved. We have had discussions with Iraqi officials from the Ministry of Oil from outside the country, in order to better understand the complex situation in Iraq. We have experience with the technical and operational challenges that Iraq will face in future. This is based on our experience with similar situations in the Middle East. We aspire to establish a long-term presence in Iraq and a long-term relationship with the Iraqis, including the newly elected Government."

The Western oil majors will almost certainly have to wait until the security situation in Iraq improves before they are prepared to put their people on the ground. However, they are likely to tie up the Ministry of Oil in negotiations over projects until that happens - assuming that Iraq does not simply dissolve into all-out civil war. And, as the south and the north of the country, where most of the oil lies, are relatively less violent, it may be possible to operate in the country even while the central region around Baghdad continues to be a bloodbath.

The Russians and Chinese are almost certain to send their people in, no matter what the risks. Here the US group ConocoPhillips has pulled off a clever arrangement. Lukoil negotiated with the regime of Saddam Hussein for rights to the giant undeveloped West Qurna field. ConocoPhillips has taken a 20 per cent equity stake in Lukoil - a deal approved by the Kremlin - and it has apparently negotiated a 50 per cent share in Lukoil's West Qurna interest. So the Russian personnel would take the risks but Americans would still benefit.

Iraq's oil wealth is just too great for the majors to miss. The question is not if they will go in, but when.

This story has some interesting links buried within.

New Iraq oil law moves to parliament :: from www.uruknet.info :: news from occupied Iraq - it

Simultaneously, the new iraq oil law gets conveniently leaked.

Marhlo Khanaqin and Mandali, Zorbatiyah Affects Bonn

(Voice of Iraq) - 24-02-2007
This issue was sent to a friend

In a letter to the supreme body supervising the implementation of the pain births (140)

Marhlo Khanaqin and Mandali, Zorbatiyah Affects Bonn to return home

European / met Thursday, February 22, 2007 a large number of the forcibly deported from the sons of Khanaqin and Mandali, Badra, Zerbat Yeh during the rule of Saddam Hussein's regime dead - and-buried in the building of the Committee of Jawamir martyr of the Center for Baghdad organizations attended Ass without God's hands cured official status. And we touched on the importance of the application of Article (140) of the cupolas the allegation concerning the normalization of Iraqi and the situation in Kirkuk Wa the contested areas, as an article in the Iraqi constitution, which voted (yes) to fit the vast majority of the Iraqi people. it is dedicated article in a clear and frank realization of the rights and remedies and injustice suffered by the sons of this anguish Hink made the apartheid regime by deportation forcibly. And the fact that this article set for the new Iraq reconciled with the same Y Haterm rights of its citizens Iraq based on tolerance and live a common to all of the components in the framework of a new social contract it was agreed by all Iraqis, expressed in the Constitution of Iraq .
And after the official answered questions from the audience and the T mechanisms related to the implementation of this article and issued a decree coordinates for the committee in charge of supervising its implementation. At the end of the meeting in a letter to conferees Algan e Supreme supervising the implementation of Article (140) and expressed the where are united by their attachment to their wish to return strong to their areas of origin and implementation of such a claim to rule in letter and spirit and to facilitate the return of the deportees and mitigation m n their suffering that took them over many years and commissioned Ko Heh. The following is the text of the speech :

In Iraq
Iraqi government to hike fuel prices by 15%

SignOnSanDiego.com > In Iraq -- Iraqi government to hike fuel prices by 15%


REUTERS

1:10 a.m. February 23, 2007

BAGHDAD – Consumer fuel prices will be hiked by around 15 percent in March as Iraq implements an agreement with the International Monetary Fund to cut subsidies, Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said.
Iraq has the world's third largest known oil reserves but decades of war, sanctions, under-investment and now widespread violence and sabotage have left it critically short of fuel. It has to import much of its gasoline.

The government continues to control prices, fostering a thriving black market in fuel for those unwilling to queue for hours, sometimes days, to fill their vehicles.
Shahristani told Arabiya television in an interview broadcast on Friday the price of benzene would rise from 350 dinars (about 27 U.S. cents) to 400 dinar and the price of gasoline would rise from 300 dinar to 350 dinar by mid-March.

Iraq won a loan accord with the IMF in December 2005 and a $14 billion debt swap with private lenders. Since then, the price of a litre of ordinary gasoline has risen from 20 dinars.

Scramble for Iraq's oil begins as troops start to pull out
By Saeed Shah
Published: 23 February 2007


We are about to find out if the invasion of Iraq really was a war for oil. The country is on the verge of passing a petroleum law, which will set down rules for investing in its oil industry. That will set off a race among the foreign oil giants, scrambling for their slice of Iraq's vast oil riches. Britain's two world-leading oil companies, BP and Shell, both say they want to enter Iraq. Exxon, ConocoPhillips, Total, Russia's Lukoil and the Chinese will also form part of the rush.

Even while the security situation in Iraq remains dire, it seems the prize will be just too great for the oil majors to resist. The country has proven reserves of 115 billion barrels of oil, around the same as Iran, but it is thought that its actual reserves could be anywhere up to 300 billion barrels - which would make it bigger than Saudi Arabia. Much of the west of Iraq remains unexplored.

John Teeling, chairman of Petrel Resources, the explorer listed on London's AIM market which has had interests in Iraq since 1997, says: "Iraq has 70 discovered, undeveloped fields. You'd die for any one of them. Even the small ones have a billion barrels. If this isn't the holy grail, it's right next door to it."

It is hard to exaggerate the scale of the opportunity in Iraq, especially given the fact that foreign companies are, essentially, shut out of the rest of the Middle East and Russia is increasingly hostile to international players.

"It costs $1 a barrel to get oil out in Iraq. If you're getting $60 for it, that's good economics. You don't have to go to Harvard to figure that out," Mr Teeling says.

War-torn Iraq is currently producing less than 2 million barrels a day, well down on the 2.8 million barrels before the 2003 invasion by the US and Britain.

Tariq Shafiq, a former executive in the Iraq National Oil company and one of the experts called in to draft the country's petroleum law, says Iraq could "very easily" get to 3.5 million barrels a day. He says it is "physically" capable of producing 10 million barrels a day - around the current output levels of Saudi Arabia, the pre-eminent producer today.

Mr Shafiq, who now works for the consultants Petrolog & Associates, says that foreign involvement in Iraq's oil industry is needed for its technical knowledge, not capital - given the high price of oil, investment is pretty much self-financing. "Iraq has been left behind," he says.

The former president Saddam Hussein cut Iraq off from foreign oil technology, first by pursuing the war with Iran in the 1980s, then the international sanctions of the 1990s. Advanced oil recovery techniques, such as water injection, passed the country by.

The petroleum law, which is now in its third draft and is expected to go before the Iraqi parliament soon, allows wide-ranging and deep involvement in the sector. It envisages three type of international contract - buy-backs, production-sharing agreements (PSAs) and service contracts.

The PSAs are the deals most favoured by big oil, as they allow the foreign company to book the reserves. Buy-back contracts typically require upfront investment from the international company, with a guaranteed rate of return to repay the money.

Mr Shafiq says that the draft law does not specify a figure for the permitted rate of return, it talks of a "fair" return. This he interprets as being no more than 20 per cent.

The law awards much power to the regions for negotiating contracts, with the central government given an oversight role, a feature that did not exist in the Mr Shafiq's original draft and one that he believes will play into the fracturing of Iraq. However, the oil revenues will be shared between the provinces, according to their populations, not their oil resources - that gives the oil-poor Sunni areas a big stake in the success of the industry.

While the oil industry's majors and super-majors are not currently in Iraq, the minnows such as Petrel and the Norwegian group DNO, which is actually producing oil in the relatively safe Kurdish north, have shown that it is possible to operate in the country.

The lack of a law setting out the rules for the oil industry and the extreme security problems have kept the big operators formally away. But they have been active behind the scenes and, once the petroleum law is enacted, it is expected that all of them will rush to the Iraq oil ministry's negotiating table.

Shell and BP, for instance, have obtained precious knowledge of two of Iraq's biggest oilfields by providing free assistance. These projects do not involve having company personnel on the ground in Iraq. BP has studied the reservoir data from the Rumaila field in the south, to advise on how to maximise future production.

BP says: "Once the security situation permits, and the Iraqis seek assistance, we would consider opportunities there, as we would elsewhere in the world."

Shell is currently undertaking a reservoir study of the Kirkuk field, in the north, "in order to assist the Ministry of Oil to enhance production from this field".

Shell is more forthright. It says: "Shell has a very long history of working in Iraq. We would welcome the opportunity to help Iraq re-build its energy industry, but we will only enter the country once security, living and working conditions are improved. We have had discussions with Iraqi officials from the Ministry of Oil from outside the country, in order to better understand the complex situation in Iraq. We have experience with the technical and operational challenges that Iraq will face in future. This is based on our experience with similar situations in the Middle East. We aspire to establish a long-term presence in Iraq and a long-term relationship with the Iraqis, including the newly elected Government."

The Western oil majors will almost certainly have to wait until the security situation in Iraq improves before they are prepared to put their people on the ground. However, they are likely to tie up the Ministry of Oil in negotiations over projects until that happens - assuming that Iraq does not simply dissolve into all-out civil war. And, as the south and the north of the country, where most of the oil lies, are relatively less violent, it may be possible to operate in the country even while the central region around Baghdad continues to be a bloodbath.

The Russians and Chinese are almost certain to send their people in, no matter what the risks. Here the US group ConocoPhillips has pulled off a clever arrangement. Lukoil negotiated with the regime of Saddam Hussein for rights to the giant undeveloped West Qurna field. ConocoPhillips has taken a 20 per cent equity stake in Lukoil - a deal approved by the Kremlin - and it has apparently negotiated a 50 per cent share in Lukoil's West Qurna interest. So the Russian personnel would take the risks but Americans would still benefit.

Iraq's oil wealth is just too great for the majors to miss. The question is not if they will go in, but when.

Independent Online Edition > Business Analysis & Features

The government continues to control prices, fostering a thriving black market in fuel for those unwilling to queue for hours, sometimes days, to fill their vehicles.
Shahristani told Arabiya television in an interview broadcast on Friday the price of benzene would rise from 350 dinars (about 27 U.S. cents) to 400 dinar and the price of gasoline would rise from 300 dinar to 350 dinar by mid-March.

That's like cruising down Sunset Boulevard or Strip in Cookie's Corvy Stingray guzzling away at just those prices back in the 60s with a dime's worth and rising slowly around the mid-70s ..... U C, theres still good market to own a SUV or a hummer around those parts of the Middle East!!!

Whoa! No, posts since 9:3* yesterday? That's scary!

Scott Paye

Reval?


Where is everybody?