By John Lee.
Iraqi oil minister Jabar Ali al-Luaibi [Allibi] has announced an increase of 10 billion barrels in Iraq's oil reserves, bringing its total proven reserves to 153 billion barrels.
He said the increase comes from seven oil fields in central and southern Iraq, but did not name the fields in question.
Iraq will ask OPEC to adopt the new figure.
(Sources: Associated Press, Reuters)
MoO and new official oil proven reserve
This is not something new; back in April 2013 the then Minister of Oil- Abdul Kareem Luaibi made official statement confirming Iraq’s proven reserves of 150 billion barrels. Even BP Statistical Review editions 2014 and 2015 adopted that figure at end 2013 and end 2014. However, BPSR in its 2016 edition reduced that figure to 143.1 billion barrels at end of 2015 without clarifying or explaining this huge decline in proven reserves just in one year! This last figure of 143.1 was close to the publically announced estimate by the Iraqi Ministry of Oil in October 2010.
The Ministry should provide the details and argument supportive to this new estimate before asking OPEC to adopt it to avoid discrediting the Ministry of Oil: if the former Minister of Oil did inform OPEC about the declared proven reserves back in 2013 then the new declaration would undermine the credibility of the Ministry and current Minister; on the other if the former Minister of Oil did not inform OPEC despite his public declaration of April 2013 then the new declaration would undermine the credibility of the Ministry and former Minister. In either case the credibility of the Ministry of Oil would be tarnished.
Thus verification and validation are more need than just a declaration!
Ahmed Mousa Jiyad,
Iraq/ Development Consultancy & Research,
Norway.
[email protected]
23 Feb 2017
I totally agree on the point of Ahmed Mousa