Word: oil
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...that would seem business as usual at a harbor for a major oil producer, except that much of what's flowing through Khur al-Zubar is coming into Iraq rather than heading out. These days, the facility, originally built more than 30 years ago for exporting oil, takes in roughly 66,460 metric tons of fuel a month, only slightly less than the amount of oil the area pumps for sale on the world market. (Iraq, as a whole, imports roughly a fifth of its oil.) "It's a problem," says port manager Hussein Hamid al-Maliki, who's working...
...laughing. Frustration over the sluggish pace of Iraq's oil production is rising in the country and abroad as global prices soar. (At the same time, current oil revenues account for 90% of the government's substantial budget surplus of roughly $50 billion, unspent because of an inefficient infrastructure and bureaucracy.) Much of Iraq starves for electricity and fuel as vast amounts of oil and gas sit untapped in the ground. Iraq's oil industry needs a virtual overhaul to reach a level of production that could erase chronic fuel shortages in the country and rake in windfall profits...
...April, Iraq's Ministry of Oil drew up an ?lite roster of companies ranging from Malaysia's Petronas to Russia's Gazprom. The list of 35 corporations, including six American giants, reads like a Who's Who of global oil players, all of whom are invited to bid on eight major oil and gas projects Iraq wants to launch next year. The goal is to get Iraq, currently producing about 2 million bbl. a day, pumping up to 3 million by the end of 2009. The eight oil projects on offer to outside companies chiefly involve refurbishing and developing various...
...largely autonomous Kurdish territories of northern Iraq, the regional government is already moving ahead with oil deals of its own that the central government in Baghdad considers illegal. Nevertheless, several smaller oil firms from Austria, Hungary, India, Canada and South Korea have signed deals with the Kurdish Regional Government. But most big players at present appear to be eyeing potential ventures in Iraq's vast oil territory around Basra instead. Years of neglect have left many oil fields there looking like junkyards. Rusting vehicles, heaps of trash and pools of spilled oil litter a hazy expanse dotted with plumes...
...Ueaibi says South Oil Company is in the process of rehabilitating about 200 wells that could increase production by about a quarter-million bbl. a day by the end of the year. Perhaps as much as 2.5 million bbl. a day could be flowing from Iraq within a year if South Oil Company can get some further outside help from companies in the coming months before any major deals are signed. Production levels beyond that, al-Ueaibi says, will depend on how much more outside help Iraq...