Oil Minister Hussein
Shahristani, who has predicted that by 2012 Iraq
could be pumping 6.0 million barrels per day
Iraq’s oil production could reach 9.0 million
barrels a day in 2016, up from around 2.4 million
barrels currently, according to the head of the
international oil producer Heritage Oil.
But the lack of a clear development strategy for
Iraq’s oil resources is delaying the much-needed
foreign investment required to reach this level of
production, Micael Gulbenkian indicated in an
interview with Portugal’s Lusa news agency.
“Iraq has gigantic potential”, said Gulbenkian,
whose company has projects in the war-torn country.
“The Iraqi economy is a failure. The country doesn’t
have the means to develop and explore its national
resources”.
The Iraqi authorities are torn between a policy
which would seek to keep the development of the
country’s oil resources in national hands and a
policy of openness to foreign investment in the
sector, he noted. |
Hussein Shahristani, Iraqi Oil Minister |
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Iraq expects its daily oil production to reach 6.0
million barrels per day by 2012, Iraq’s Oil Minister
Hussein Shahristani said last month, adding that
Iraq’s highest oil production was now 3.5 million
barrels a day.
Production was about 2.5 million dollars a day when
President Saddam Hussein was deposed in 2003. It
then collapsed to virtually nothing and has been
slow to rebuild because of insurgent attacks and
other problems.
Heritage Oil, based in Canada, has a development
property in Russia, a producing property in Oman,
exploration projects in Uganda and has entered into
projects in Kurdistan, Iraq.
Gulbenkian was in Lisbon to take part in a course on
oil management offered to 46 Iraqis which is
sponsored by Heritage Oil and Portuguese oil and gas
company Galp.
Oil refinery planned for Iraqi Kurdistan
Iraqi Kurdistan will soon have its own oil refinery
with a capacity of 250,000 barrels per day from
newly discovered oil fields, the Lebanese company
chosen to implement the project said last week.
A memorandum of understanding was signed between
Ashti Horami, Kurdish minister of natural resources,
and Lebanon’s Make Oil AG to build the refinery over
the next two years.
“There is an agreement with the Kurdish Regional
Government, and we will announce the full details in
a week”, company director Ahmed Khair al-Din told
reporters by phone from the company offices in
Beirut.
Make Oil, which was registered in Lebanon in 1995,
is already in the process of constructing a cement
plant in the northern Kurdish town of Dohuk, near
the Turkish border.
The accord comes following the April announcement of
the discovery of an oil field in the Zakho region of
Kurdistan near the Turkish border -- the first in
the Kurdish Autonomous Region.
The field is expected to produce 20,000 barrels per
day by next year, with a view to increasing output
to 200,000 barrels per day by 2008.
Kurdistan has proven reserves of some 3.6 billion
barrels, less than 3.0 percent of Iraq’s total,
though the Kurdish government has estimated that
reserves could be as high as 45 billion barrels.
Though Kurdistan is safer than the rest of the
country, perceived security risks have kept down
interest from major international oil companies,
leaving exploration to smaller outfits.
Investors are also hesitant because the legal
investment framework for the Kurdish region’s oil is
not clear. Oil exploration in the rest of the
country must go through the Oil Ministry, and the
constitution specifies that all Iraq’s oil belongs
to all its people.
The Kurdish regional government maintains that it
has the authority to pursue its own agreements.
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