Turkey's growing rift with Iraq has exposed its role in the Middle East with Ankara protecting its stability from an Iranian-Iraqi “Shi’ite axis” with the withdrawal of the US military. Turkish officials have been in a war of words with Baghdad since December when the Shi’ite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered the arrest of Sunni […]
Preparations are being made for a fourth auction of oil and natural gas exploration zones. This will be in line with the country's aim to rival Saudi Arabia as one of the world’s leading oil producers. Iraq’s official statistics reveal that oil reserves are pegged at 143.1 billion barrels, the fourth largest in the world. […]
Halliburton has won a $95 million contract from Russian state oil producer Gazprom Neft to test and complete 11 wells at its Badra oil field in eastern Iraq, according to the Wall Street Journal. Gazprom said testing of the first well is scheduled to start in the third quarter of this year. "Production will commence […]
By Bob Nottelmann, crop production specialist with California Pacific Plant Exports (Cal Pacific) and Ekland Marketing of California (Emco). The introduction of commercial strawberry production in Iraq has been a satisfying success. Following the initial introduction of certified nursery stock to a few trial growers in 2009, the production of strawberries in the country has […]
Sarmad Al-Khudairi, CEO of Al-Fayha Building Solutions, one of the biggest industrial contractors and service providers in south Iraq, is focusing resources on its precast concrete business in response to soaring demand, according to a report in Construction Week. He told CW in an interview: “We are focusing on our main business, which is the […]
The Chinese firm Zhenhua has decided not to partner with Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) in a bid for an exploration block in Iraq due to security issues, the Express Tribune reports. "The News", however, reports that Zhenhua walked out on the deal because a re-drawing of the boundary of the Bloc-9 meant "the opportunity became […]
Wheat prices surged on Wednesday after Iraq said it bought 400,000 metric tons from the U.S., Australia, Russia, Romania and Kazakhstan. The contracts are for delivery in July and August, a spokesman for the grain board told Bloomberg. (Sources: Bloomberg, Reuters)
Levels of violence fell slightly in Iraq last week. At least 27 people were killed and 73 injured in nationwide incidents. A total of 19 non-suicide bomb attacks left 16 people dead and 55 injured. This constitutes a lower than normal figure for the country, although the decline is likely to be temporary. Two further […]
It might not seem so important in a country faced with such major post-conflict challenges, but getting the basics of communication right should be a necessary function of any government department or state agency. A key element of communication has to be the website, but it is remarkable how many Iraqi government websites are out […]
Sami al-Araji, chairman of Iraq’s National Investment Commission (NIC), has told Bloomberg that Iraq will soon sign a $7 billion agreement with South Korea’s Hanwha Engineering & Construction Corporation [Hanwah] to build 100,000 housing units in the country. The commission is also due to sign a contract with the UAE-based Bloom Properties to build 40,000 […]
Bloomberg reports that Iran Khodro, the country’s largest carmaker, plans to manufacture 30,000 cars at its production site in Iraq this year. The company is delivering components to the plant for assembly, mostly for the Samand sedan model (pictured). Operations at the plant, which has received investment from a local partner, started in 2011, the […]
Russia’s Gazprom Neft is expecting to start exporting from its East Badrah oil field in Wasit [Wassit] province early next year, according to AKnews. Alexander V Kolomatsky, Project director for the Middle East at Gazprom, said the company had initially planned to reach the 15,000 bpd level by the last quarter of 2013 because the […]
