How to Invest $200 billion over 6 Years

How to Invest $200 billion over 6 Years

Posted on 30 November 2011. Tags: Refineries, Shahristani, Sharristani

At the ‘Iraq: Untapped Opportunities’ conference in London last week, the Deputy Prime Minister with responsibility for energy, Dr Hussain al-Shahristani (pictured), said Iraq needed $200 billion (240 trillion Iraqi dinars) of investment in the energy sector over the next six years.

This investment would be broken down as follows:

• $100bn to develop upstream oil and gas fields;
• $40bn to develop the gas industry;
• $30bn to increase refinery capacity;
• $30bn to expand export facilities.

With regard to refineries, Shahristani said the refineries law provided investors with a 5% discount to the market price for crude oil, and in some cases all output would be bought by the Ministry of Oil.

====================

US to Spend More than $6bn in Iraq Next Year

Posted on 29 November 2011.

The United States is to spend more than $6 billion in Iraq in 2012 even though its forces are to withdraw from the country by the end of this year, US ambassador James Jeffrey (pictured) said on Sunday, according to AFP.

US President Barack Obama announced on October 21 that the last troops would leave by year’s end, but Baghdad will still host the largest American embassy in the world, with a full US mission to Iraq to include up to 16,000 people.

“We are standing up an embassy to carry out a $6.5 billion programme, when you throw in the refugee programmes as well as the actual State Department budget for 2012, of assistance in support for Iraq on a very broad variety of security and non-security issues,” Jeffrey told reporters at a roundtable.

“The direct budget, operating and assistance (to Iraq), was $6.2 billion,” Jeffrey said.

He said there is also “a little less than $300 million that goes to refugee and displaced person programmes.”

“It doesn’t come directly onto the Iraq account … but we get a very significant part of that here, and it’s used by other agencies and activities for example in Jordan and Syria,” home of sizeable Iraqi refugee communities.

Jeffrey also discussed US military sales to Iraq.

“We have about $8 billion, give or take some, of active (foreign military sales) cases with Iraq.”

“That’s not counting the new one that just came out for the F-16s (warplanes). That will send it up by a number of additional billions of dollars,” Jeffrey said.

“This is one of the biggest programmes in the world,” he said.

“We have a large number of trainers and people from the defence contracts that are doing the equipping and training of the Iraqis throughout the country.”

“We want to see other ways that … we can support Iraq to develop their conventional capabilities and to continue the fight against terror. This is a very important joint priority of ours,” Jeffrey said.

“The Al-Qaeda in Iraq organisation is still active, particularly in the north, but they strike throughout the country.”

He also said that the US plans to remain involved in mediating disputes between Iraqi Arabs and Kurds, especially in the disputed northern province of Kirkuk, which the autonomous Kurdistan region wants to incorporate, against Baghdad’s wishes.

“To the extent the two Iraqi sides want to continue that, and we will certainly be recommending that they continue that, we’re willing to play the coordinating and liaison and advisory role that we have played in the past,” he said.

(Source: AFP)

Two attacks kill 17 northeast of Baghdad

SAMEER N. YACOUB

Baghdad— The Associated Press

Published Thursday, Dec. 01, 2011 3:48AM EST

Last updated Thursday, Dec. 01, 2011 3:50AM

Two separate attacks killed 17 people on Thursday in a northeastern Iraqi province that was once an al-Qaeda stronghold, Iraqi officials said.

The marketplace car bombing and the assault on the home of an anti-al-Qaeda militia leader came on the third day of a visit by U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden, in advance of the withdrawal of American troops at the end of the year.

MORE RELATED TO THIS STORY

• Bombs kill 15 in and around Baghdad
• Triple bombings in Iraqi oil city kill 19

A parked car bomb exploded in the town of Khalis as morning shoppers were starting to arrive, killing 10 persons and wounding 22 others, two police officials said.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Khalis, a Shiite enclave 80 kilometres north of Baghdad, is surrounded by the largely Sunni province of Diyala. The province was a hotbed of al-Qaeda in Iraq during the height of the country’s violence in 2004-2007.

Also in Diyala, gunmen stormed the home of an anti-al-Qaeda Sunni fighter at dawn and killed seven people, police said. The victims of the attack in the town of Buhriz about 60 kilometres north of Baghdad included the local leader of the pro-government Sahwa or Awakening Councils movement and six members of his family, four of whom were women.

Faris al-Azawi, the spokesman of Diyala’s health directorate, confirmed the death tolls in both Khalis and Buhriz.

The attacks came as Mr. Biden met with Iraqi officials on a trip designed to chart a new relationship between the two countries ahead of the withdrawal of U.S. forces by the end of this year.

Iraqi security officials maintain that they are fully prepared for the American withdrawal, which is required under a 2008 security pact between the U.S. and Iraq. About 13,000 U.S. troops are still in the country, down from a one-time high of about 170,000. All of those troops will be out of the country by the end of December.

But many Iraqis are concerned that insurgents may use the transition period to launch more attacks in a bid to regain their former prominence and destabilize the country.

At least 56 Iraqis have been killed in separate attacks across the country in the past eight days, a warning that even more violence may be in the offing ahead of the American withdrawal.

================

Foreign Companies Keen to Work for Missan Oil

Posted on 01 December 2011. Tags: Maysan, Maysan Oil Company, Missan, Missan Oil Company

Aswat al-Iraq reports that a number of American, Malaysian, French and Japanese companies are interested in working in southern Iraq’s Missan Oil Company.

“The Internatoinal Oil Gas Exhibition, held in Basra Province, saw visits by dozens of foreign companies to the Missan Oil Company pavilion,” Ali Abbas al-Turfy told the news agency, adding that “more the 100 companies have offered to work in the Company’s oil, excavation, supplies and other oil services.”

Missan [Maysan] Province, center of which is Amara city, 390 km to the south of Baghdad, is one of the leading oil provinces, producing over 100k barrels per day (bpd). It includes six oil-producing fields: Bazergan, Abu-Gharb, Fakka and Halfaya, as well as the Majnoun Oil Field, that is partner of the the Southern Oil Company, along with 5 discovered but unproducing fields, including the Huweiza, al-Rafi’e, East Rafidan, Dujeila and Kumait fields.

================