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Iraq Aims to Beat IEA Oil Forecast

By John Lee. Iraq has said its oil output could reach up to 10 million barrels per day by 2020, higher than the recent prediction from the International Energy Agency (IEA). Speaking at a ceremony for the publication of the IEA report, Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister for energy, Hussain al-Shahristani (pictured), predicted that the country's […]

Qatar National Bank Takes Over Iraq's Al-Mansour

By John Lee. Qatar National Bank (QNB) has announced that it has taken control of Iraq's Al-Mansour Investment Bank. It acquired an additional 27.7 percent shareholding for a cash payment of QR425.4 million, bringing its interest in the bank to 50.8 percent. The company said that goodwill of QR117.6 million has been determined on acquisition […]

Video: Russia-Iraq Arms Deal - Business as Usual?

By John Lee. Russia has agreed to sell up to $5bn worth of arms to Iraq. Are the motives behind the deal purely financial, and does it impact the delicate balance of power in the region? Guests: Sabah al-Mukhtar, Jorge Benitez, Dmitry Babich: (Source: Al Jazeera)

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Genel Energy Presentation from Capital Markets Day

By John Lee. Genel Energy has hosted a Capital Markets Day for analysts and investors in London. Please click here to download the strategy presentation, and here to view the webcast. Tony Hayward (pictured), Chief Executive Officer of Genel Energy, said: "In the Kurdistan Region of Iraq we have doubled the size of our business […]

From Russia With Love

By John Lee. A high-level Iraqi delegation visiting Russia has made quite a stir this week: Arms deals worth $4.2 billion were announced, making Russia Iraq's second biggest supplier of arms after the US; A memorandum of understanding was signed for political and diplomatic cooperation between the two countries, with Iraq asking Russia’s help to […]

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Russia Bags $4.2bn Iraq Arms Deals

By John Lee. Iraq is to buy more than $4.2 billion of weapons from Russia under contracts signed in recent months, the Russian government announced on Wednesday, making it the largest weapons supplier to the Middle East country after the United States. While a spokesman for Russia's state-controlled arms exporter, Rosvooruzheniye, said it never discusses […]

Putin Backs Russian Push for Iraqi Oil

By John Lee. Russian President Vladimir Putin (pictured) lobbied Iraq's prime minister on Wednesday to support Russian energy investment, according to a report from Reuters. At talks with Nouri al-Maliki in Moscow, he also called for Russia to strengthen its presence in the OPEC state. Gazprom Neft denied on Wednesday that it had frozen its […]

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Iraq asks Russia's Help to Exit Chapter VII

By John Lee. Iraq's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hoshyar Zebari, and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, signed a memorandum of understanding on Tuesday for political and diplomatic cooperation. Following the signing ceremony, political and technical talks between the two sides took place on ways to develop relations between Iraq and Russia as well as exchanging […]

Gazprom Denies Freezing Kurdistan Contracts

By John Lee. Both Russia's Gazprom Neft and the Kurdistan Regional Government have denied that the company has frozen projects in Iraqi Kurdistan. "Gazprom Neft is still working on these projects. The company keeps its interest in Kurdistan," a Gazprom Neft source told Reuters. A spokesman for the KRG said Gazprom had informed the KRG […]

Iraqi Oil to be Game-Changer for World Markets

Iraq’s energy sector holds the key to the country’s future prosperity and can make a major contribution to the stability and security of global energy markets, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says in a special report of the World Energy Outlook released today – the first time that the IEA has conducted a comprehensive review […]

Iraq Approves LUKoil Development

Reuters reports that the Iraqi government has approved the exploration, development and production contract for Block 10 in the south of the country. Russia's LUKoil, which already has an interest in the giant West Qurna-2 oilfield, won the deal for the 5,500-square-kilometer Block 10 in Muthanna and Dhi Qar provinces in Iraq's 4th round energy […]