Baker Hughes Wins Drilling And Completions Contract
The drilling and completions contract covers 23 wells in the West Qurna phase two field. LUKOIL has awarded Baker Hughes a two-year contract to provide full drilling and completion services for 23 wells in the West Qurna field in southeast Iraq, 50km west of Basra. Under the terms of the contract, Baker Hughes will provide […]
Non-Oil Trade with Syria Hits $2bn
Trade between Iraq and Syria is now running at US$2bn per year, according to a spokesperson for the Iraqi Ministry of Trade. Hashem Hatam said that this does not include trade in oil and gas, according to Aknews. At the same time, events could sour increasing trade between the neighbours. As Syria cracks down on […]
Detailed Analysis of South Gas Deal with Shell/Mitsubishi
The attached document is a detailed analysis of the joint venture between South Gas Company and Shell & Mitsubishi, prepared by our expert blogger Ahmed Mousa Jiyad. Mr Jiyad is an independent development consultant, scholar and Associate with Centre for Global Energy Studies-CGES, London. He was formerly a senior economist with the Iraq National Oil […]
41 Companies Qualify for Iraq's 4th Energy Auction
Iraq has qualified 41 companies to participate in its 4th energy bidding round, which is scheduled to take place in late January, Abdul-Mahdy al-Ameedi, director of the oil ministry's contracts and licensing directorate, told Reuters on Sunday. The 4th bidding round for the 12 new exploration blocs is expected to add 29 trillion cubic feet […]
Iraqi Electricity Minister Sacked for Deals
Iraq's prime minister has fired his electricity minister, who is under investigation following allegations that he failed to follow government guidelines in the signing of $1.7 billion in power generation deals with two foreign companies. The minister Raad Shalal signed the deals in question with the Canadian Alliance for Power Generation Equipment (Capgent) and the […]
New UN Special Representative for Iraq
United Nations Secretary-General BAN Ki-moon today announced his intention to appoint Mr. Martin Kobler of Germany as his Special Representative for Iraq and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI). He will replace Ad Melkert of the Netherlands who served in Iraq since July 2009. The Secretary-General is grateful for Mr. Melkert’s […]
STX Group Plays Down Risk of Power Deal Failure
According to reports from Reuters, the Korean giant STX Group has played down the possibility that its $2.76 billion power deal with the Iraqi government may collapse. Following report that STX was running out of time to secure a third party financial guarantor, the shipping-to-energy conglomerate says the contract does not mention a three-month deadline […]
Heritage Starts Drilling at Miran West-3
Heritage Oil has announced that it has commenced drilling the Miran West-3 well in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Highlights The Miran West-3 well has commenced drilling with the primary objective of appraising the Miran West structure The well is targeting both the Jurassic and Cretaceous reservoir formations encountered in the Miran West-1 and Miran […]
ShaMaran Up on Results
Shares in ShaMaran Petroleum Corp were up 7% on Friday following the announcement of its financial and operating results for the second quarter of 2011 Highlights A major oil discovery in the Atrush Block was announced by the Company on April 13, 2011. The Atrush 1 well flowed at rates totalling over 6,393 bopd of […]
Arson Epidemic Linked to Corruption Investigations
In Iraq almost all official records are kept on paper. So what better way to kill the paper trail that corruption investigators are tracking, than burn the evidence? A rash of fires inside government buildings has led to calls for further investigation. A recent rash of small fires inside the offices of various ministries and […]
23 Iraqi Companies Suspended
According to a report from Rabee Securities, the Iraq Securities Commission (ISC) is suspending trading in the companies listed below, starting Monday, August 8th, 2011. The reason is their violation of instruction # (14) related to financial disclosure; their failure to submit their annual reports for 2010 and/or quarterly financial reports for first quarter 2011 […]
Is the Iraqi Presidency an Appellate Court?
The following article was published by Reidar Visser, an historian of Iraq educated at the University of Oxford and currently based at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. It is reproduced here with the author’s permission. Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News. […]