Iraq Ranks As One Of The Worst Countries To Invest In For Oil And Gas

Source AK News

In June 2012, the Fraser Institute issued its latest report on investment in oil and gas around the world. The paper was based upon a survey of several hundred executives from the hydrocarbon industry. Iraq ranked near the bottom in almost every category. This souring of opinion on Iraq is quite a change as previously energy companies were eager to get into Iraq’s petroleum market since it had been cut off for over a decade by international sanctions. Now that some businesses have gotten a taste of working there they have found it difficult, and concerns about security and political instability are also pressing issues. For those reasons, Iraq ranked in the bottom ten in the opinion poll, which could limit future investment in the country’s oil and gas sector.

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Baghdad threatens Kurds with budget cut over oil row

Source: Reuters

Iraq's central government is considering cutting federal budget payments to the country's Kurdistan by more than $3 billion (1.9 billion pounds) to cover losses it says came from the autonomous region's oil exports, a government spokesman said on Tuesday.

Ali al-Moussawi, advisor to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, said a committee found losses of more than $3 billion resulting from Kurdistan's failure to pump the amount of oil agreed in the budget, and from its recent halting of oil exports.


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Total investing in Kurdistan oil despite threats

Source: Marketwatch

"Total has been seeking to get into Kurdistan simply because it sees there tremendous exploration potential, as much as the 30 or so oil companies which are already there," the person familiar with the matter said.

Following Total's entry into Kurdistan in July, Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister, Hussein al-Shahristani, told reporters in Baghdad that it must end its dealings with the semi-autonomous region or sell its stake in a major southern oil field, Halfaya, according to a report from Agence France Presse. He did not specify the time by which Total needed to make a decision.

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More on this story from Rudaw in English Kurdistan Resumes Oil Exports Despite Uncertainty of Baghdad’s Position


KRG’s Ministry of Natural Resources says that Baghdad owes oil companies working in the Kurdistan Region $1.5 billion.

“In this year’s budget, 650 billion Iraqi dinars has been set aside to compensate oil companies in Kurdistan and if a decision is made, it can be expended immediately,” Nabi said, clarifying that approval must come from the new oil committee.

Nabi believes Shahristani is the main obstacle to the payment being made. “Even though we have the authority to expend it, it would be considered a violation of the law because Shahristani opposed last year’s payment at the Council of Ministers.”

Syria's Pipelineistan war

Source: Al Jazeera

The Kurdish enigma

Most of Syria's oil reserves are in the Kurdish northeast - which geographically lies between Iraq and Turkey; the rest is along the Euphrates, down south.

Syrian Kurds make up nine per cent of the population - some 1.6 million people. Even if they're not a sizable minority, Syrian Kurds are already considering that whatever happens in a post-Assad environment, they will be very well positioned in Pipelineistan, offering a direct route for oil exports from Iraqi Kurdistan, in theory bypassing both Baghdad and Ankara.

It's as if the whole region is playing a Bypassing Lotto. As much as the Islamic Gas Pipeline may be interpreted as bypassing Turkey, a direct deal between Ankara and Iraqi Kurdistan for two strategic oil and gas pipelines from Kirkuk to Ceyhan may be seen as bypassing Baghdad.

Baghdad, of course, will fight it - stressing these pipelines are null and void without the central government having its sizeable cut; after all it pays for 95 per cent of the budget of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Kurds in both Syria and Iraq have been playing a clever game. In Syria they don't trust Assad or the SNC opposition. The PYD - linked to the PKK - dismisses the SNC as a puppet from Turkey. And the secular Kurdish National Council (KNC) dreads the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.

So the absolute majority of Syrian Kurds have been neutral; no support for Turkish (or Saudi) puppets, all power to the pan-Kurdish cause. PYD leader Salih Muslim Muhammad has summed it all up: "What is important is that we Kurds assert our existence."

This means, essentially, more autonomy. And that's exactly what they got from that July 11 deal signed in Irbil, under the auspices of Iraqi Kurdistan president Masoud Barzani; the co-administration of Syrian Kurdistan by the PYD and the KNC. That was the direct consequence of a wily strategic retreat by the Assad regime.

No wonder Ankara is freaking out - it sees not only the PKK finding a safe haven in Syria, hosted by their cousins of the PYD, but also two Kurdish de facto statelets, sending a powerful signal to Kurds in Anatolia.

What Ankara could do to minimise its nightmare is to discreetly help the Syrian Kurds economically - ranging from aid to investments in infrastructure - via its good relations with Iraqi Kurdistan.

Read the full article: Syria's Pipelineistan war

Comment: This article by Asia Times's Pepe Escobar places the present struggle going on in Western Kurdistan and Syria into the proposed energy economy of the region, surely one of the key motivators for the Turkish, Iraqi, Iranian and Kurdish players.

French French Total signs Iraqi Kurdistan oil deal

Source: AFP

French energy giant Total said on Tuesday it has signed an oil exploration deal for areas in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, putting it on a collision course with the central government in Baghdad.

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