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

HRW: Iraq government grew “more fragmented”

Human Rights Watch organization affirmed that Nuri Al Maliki government grew “more fragmented and dysfunctional”. “Legislation on oil revenue, one index of the chances of a cohesive national government, languished in a paralyzed parliament” the organization added. In addition the report said that “defections from the government left its political and sectarian base even narrower, and made the prospect of national political reconciliation seem distant”.

HRW in a bleak assessment of Iraq in its annual report said that “sectarian cleansing” carries on and that many attacks appeared to be intended to cause the greatest possible civilian casualties and spread fear. The report also pointed out that the manner of the executions further apprehensions from Maliki’s government performance.

HRW: Iraq government grew “more fragmented� | Iraq News | Alsumaria Iraqi Satellite TV Network

Hashemi lashes Accountability & Justice Bill

Iraq Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi said that the expected political reconciliation shall not take place thru filling the vacuum caused by the withdrawal of political blocs from the government. Hashemi stressed that it is necessary that the actual government resigns and to form a new one “this course needs a new cabinet headed by Nuri al-Maliki. There must be a complete reshuffle,” he said.

Moreover Hashemi was “cautiously optimistic” that the Accordance bloc would return to the government Hashemi told Reuters in an interview. “There are positive indications from the government that suggest the final position will be in favor of (the bloc) returning”, Hashemi added.

On another hand, Iraq vice president criticized Accountability and Justice Bill and said “We cannot regard this law as a step in the national reconciliation process” he added. Hashemi also uttered that revenge and reprisal discourse is very obvious in a part of its items, he also added that this bill would destruct national reconciliation.

The Presidency Council has refused to sign off the new law Hashemi said. He revealed as well that the verdicts of the special Iraqi court that sentenced to death a number of the officials in the former regime sentenced in Anfal case weren’t yet submitted to presidency council in order to ratify them or not to, which is a very weird and astounding issue, he said.

Hashemi lashes Accountability & Justice Bill | Iraq News | Alsumaria Iraqi Satellite TV Network

Update.......

Iraq to boost energy cooperation with EU

Oil Minister Hussain Al Shahristani held a joint press conference with EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs. During the press Conference Shahiristani affirmed that “Royal Dutch Shell has made a proposal to Iraq for gathering gas and building a facility to supply the local market and export additional gas ... through southern ports or a pipeline”. He added that government will respond soon.

Earlier, Shahristani had studied with EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner means in order to boost co-operation in energy field. Shahristani said that it is important to develop cooperation and said that Iraq undertook to supply Europe with its energy needs whether of oil or natural gas. Shahristani added that European Union and Iraq are negotiating in order to sign a Trade and cooperation treaty. Regarding OPEC ministerial meeting, Shahiristani affirmed that there is no shortage in oil supply on oil the market therefore there is no need to increase oil production. He also said that oil production will not be reduced.

Iraq to boost energy cooperation with EU | Iraq News | Alsumaria Iraqi Satellite TV Network

Iraq Trade Ministry denies reducing ratio card units

Iraq Trade Ministry denied reducing ratio card units for the current year. The Ministry affirmed in a statement that the instructions that were issued before the beginning of 2008 as to reducing rice and flour was invalidated. He added that all the citizens will receive all their lots. The statement asked monitoring and inspecting directories to follow the instructions of the Ministry in this concern, to give the citizens the lots that weren’t delivered yet and to follow up this issue with agents and stores. The minister stressed that those who breach these instructions would be sanctioned.

Iraq Trade Ministry denies reducing ratio card units | Economics News | Alsumaria Iraqi Satellite TV Network

Rehabilitation works carry on in Basra Shuaiba Refinery

Technical and engineering cadres in South Refineries carry on their efforts in order to rehabilitate and renovate Shuaiba refinery in Basra after some of its production lines were damaged after the fire that erupted in it.

Rehabilitation works carry on in Basra Shuaiba Refinery | Economics News | Alsumaria Iraqi Satellite TV Network

Iraq Oil Minister: Cabinet study a bid offered by Royal Dutch Shell

Oil Minister Hussain Al Shahristani held a joint press conference with EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs. During the press Conference Shahiristani affirmed that “Royal Dutch Shell has made a proposal to Iraq for gathering gas and building a facility to supply the local market and export additional gas ... through southern ports or a pipeline”. He added that government will respond soon.

Earlier, Shahristani had studied with EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner means in order to boost co-operation in energy field. Shahristani said that it is important to develop cooperation and said that Iraq undertook to supply Europe with its energy needs whether of oil or natural gas. Shahristani added that European Union and Iraq are negotiating in order to sign a Trade and cooperation treaty. Regarding OPEC ministerial meeting, Shahiristani affirmed that there is no shortage in oil supply on oil the market therefore there is no need to increase oil production. He also said that oil production will not be reduced.

Iraq Oil MInister: Cabinet study a bid offered by Royal Dutch Shell | Economics News | Alsumaria Iraqi Satellite TV Network

Opposing Kurds turns oil minister into hero

Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani is one of the few technocrats in the government of Prime Minister Noori al-Maliki.

He is an Arab Shiite but his sectarian affiliation has rallied Arab groups, both Shiites and Sunni, in support of his ministry and administration.

Arab political factions and the local media see Shahristani as a national hero for his insistence not to allow the country’s economic mainstay, oil, to become a pawn in sectarian and ethnic squabbling.

He has stood fast against Kurdish attempts to develop oil fields on their own or extract any oil-related revenues without central government consent.

He has declared all Kurdish contracts and dealings with foreign firms or local contractors without central government approval as illegal.

Among Iraqi Kurds and their media, Shahristani is a ‘villain’ but for Arab media and their political groups he is something of a ‘hero.’

“My attitude (vis-à-vis the Kurds) has unified the disparate colors of Iraqi political spectrum. Groups of various affiliations call and visit to express their support,” he told newspaper in an interview last year.

The Kurds, who have carved up a semi-independent enclave in northern Iraq comprising three provinces, have cleverly exploited the presence of an ineffective administration in Baghdad.

But their moves have apparently backfired.

They are seen in the eyes of Arabs, whether Sunni or Shiites, as land grabbers and opportunists.

Aside from their yet unsubstantiated claim to the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, provincial authorities in the northern city of Mosul say they have spread their control on districts and villages which part of the Nineveh Province of which Mosul is the capital.

The officials, refusing to be named, say the Kurds are forcing Arabs and minorities like Yazidis who have Arabic as their mother tongue to read Kurdish in schools.

Shahristani’s stand has emboldened other ministries for the first time since the U.S. invasion to reject Kurdish demands.

The Ministry of Defense now insists to have authority over Kurdish militias of Massoud Barazani, the head of the Kurdish region, and Jalal Talabani, the Iraqi President.

Both leaders, the ministry says, have exaggerated the numbers of their militias and have recently submitted payrolls for 190,000 men.

Previously, the government would set aside Kurdish militia allocations from the budget, but now it says it should be paid by Kurds themselves.

The Ministry of Finance is disputing Kurdish claims that the population of their three provinces makes up 17 percent of the country’s total population of nearly 26 million.

The ministry now insists on slashing the Kurdish region’s share of the budget resources to 13 percent – a figure it sees reasonable given the government’s statistics on Iraqi population.

In the previous years, the Kurds were allocated 17 percent of the country’s revenues.

The ministry would like the Kurds to transfer to the central government millions of dollars they collect from levies and taxes on external trade passing through their territory.

The sides may eventually come to a compromise but confronting the Kurds in such a manner was almost unthinkable in the past.

Azzaman in English

UPDATE 1-Iraq has halted oil supplies to OMV

Iraq has halted oil supplies to Austria's OMV AG due to its oil exploration deal with the Kurdish regional government (KRG) in northern Iraq, Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said on Friday.

"The action has been taken from the first of January, everything has been stopped," the minister told reporters.

An industry source said the oil supplied was around 10,000 barrels per day of Basra Light crude.

Baghdad insists that all oil deals in Iraq must be approved by the central government and claims the KRG deals with international companies are illegal.

"We do not comment on this," said OMV spokesman Thomas Huemer. "We have no problem with supply."

"We, like other oil companies who have exploration rights in northern Iraq, believe that these agreements which are in place are in line with the Iraqi constitution."

UPDATE 1-Iraq has halted oil supplies to OMV <OMVV.VI> | Industries | Energy | Reuters&

Update......

Analysis: Iraq oil deals drawing near

Iraq's Oil Ministry, in talks with oil majors to boost production in crucial fields, may give long-term deals to firms that offer technical support.

This comes as Baghdad is preparing a first round, though somewhat cloudy in details, of bidding and negotiated contracts to improve its struggling oil sector.

Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani told Argus Media on the sidelines of the OPEC meeting in Vienna that all deals would be fully transparent. Work would be carried out by Iraqi workers, he said. There are no legal controls, though, and without it and the re-establishment of the Iraqi National Oil Co. the country's oil sector is moving away from being nationally controlled.

Officials from the world's largest oil companies have been meeting with Iraqi Oil Ministry officials in Amman, Jordan, to fix the terms of technical support contracts. Such contracts, which are shorter-term deals, will "help Iraq fast track the purchase of necessary equipment and train the Iraqi people to install them," Shahristani said.

He said those companies will be favored in a bidding round for longer-term contracts on the fields -- some of Iraq's largest producers -- set for later this year, Argus reports. Another bidding round is expected to take place next year.

Iraq produced about 2.3 million barrels per day in December and intends to hit 2.8 million bpd in two years, a projection based on enhancing currently producing fields. Iraq's oil sector, the third-largest in the world, manages despite years of misuse by Saddam Hussein, U.N. sanctions and the ongoing war. It needs tens of billions of dollars of investment and Iraq's government chronically been unable to invest its own capital budget, lacking institutional capacity.

It has no official oil law, relying on a Saddam-era law and controversial laws of the Kurdistan region. A national oil law has been stuck in negotiations for a year, largely over disputes between the national and Kurdish governments over who controls and directs the country's oil strategy.

The Kurdistan Regional Government passed its own oil law and has signed dozens of contracts to jump start its own promising oil sector. Shahristani calls the deals illegal and said any company who signs with the KRG will be kept out of the rest of Iraq. Oil sales to Korea's SK Energy and Austria's OMV have been halted.

There is also no agreement as to how much access international oil firms should have to Iraq's oil, nationalized since the 1970s.

Along with the oil law, a law governing revenue, reorganizing the Oil Ministry and reconstituting the Iraqi National Oil Company were to be approved, as a package. All are far from approval.

Now Baghdad is moving forward on signing the deals, which are needed to some extent to bring new technology to the sector and training to Iraq's oil workers. But the workers have warned against controversial production sharing contracts or any that takes control of the oil, and too much the profits, from Iraqis.

"National expertise and resources are capable of enhancing production in the oil industry," Hassan Jumaa Awad, president of the umbrella Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, told United Press International during a visit to London in November, "if they are prepared to allocate more funding and spend the resources that already exist."

A U.S. Government Accountability Office report last month said it was unable to discern how much of the 2007 capital budget Iraq's government spent. It assessed the level of success after a dismal 2006.

The U.S. State Department said Iraq's central government spent 24 percent of its capital budget through July 15, 2007. The U.S. Treasury Department pegs it at 4.4 percent through August.

"The disparity between the different sets of data calls into question their reliability and whether they can be used to draw firm conclusions about the extent to which the Iraqi government has increased its spending on capital projects in 2007, compared with 2006," the report concluded.

Iraq's Oil Ministry, like the rest of Iraq, has seen a brain drain of qualified and trained technocrats. Many have fled the country, were purged during an ethnic cleanse or have been killed.

International Security - Energy - Analysis - UPI.com

Exxon Mobil Eyes Brazil, Iraq, Record Profit Impact

Exxon Mobil vice president Henry Hubble said the oil and gas giant has been developing 19 new projects to boost future production. Exxon is actively looking for oil and gas reserves in Brazil in the wake of a big find by Petrobras . "We're in the same area," he said. Exxon said it's been in talks with officials in Iraq, but that any development in the country is, "a ways down the road." Asked about scrutiny from politicians about its record-setting profit, Hubble said, "Our industry has always been the focus of attention and I doubt that will change. What we hope is people will focus on the challenge that not only our commpany but the industry is facing. Demand is expeted to increase 30% over the next two decades. The challenge is how do we meet that demand."

Exxon Mobil Eyes Brazil, Iraq, Record Profit Impact