Iraq to open up oil fields
Güncelleme Tarihi:
AFP
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Haziran 29, 2009 00:00
BAGHDAD - Iraq will this week unveil which foreign firms have won contracts to develop its oil and gas fields, nearly four decades after Saddam Hussein nationalized the country's energy infrastructure.
The deals, likely to be announced live on television on June 29 and June 30, will provide the government with much-needed revenue as it struggles to rebuild the country after three wars and 20 years of debilitating economic sanctions. Thirty-one companies have submitted bids to develop six giant oil fields and two gas fields. The oil deposits, holding known reserves of 43 billion barrels of crude, are in southern and northern Iraq while the gas concessions are west and northeast of Baghdad.
"Our principal objective is to increase our oil production from 2.4 million barrels per day to more than four million in the next five years," Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani said in an interview with Iraqi public television.
Increasing production to that level will, according to him, pump an extra $1.7 trillion into government coffers over the next 20 years. Shahristani has said that only $30 billion of that sum will go to the companies that have extracted the oil.
"This is a huge amount that would finance infrastructure projects across Iraq - schools, roads, airports, housing, hospitals," he said, insisting that the country would retain control over its oil reserves. "Thanks to sanctions and war, no company has wanted or been able to invest," Ruba Husari, an energy expert and the founder of the Web site iraqoilforum.com, explained. "Today, the country is stable, in both its security and its institutions."
A source involved in the bidding, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described Iraq as "one of the rare countries in the world where the coming decades will bring real growth in production."
"Our principal objective is to increase our oil production from 2.4 million barrels per day to more than four million in the next five years," Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani said in an interview with Iraqi public television.
Increasing production to that level will, according to him, pump an extra $1.7 trillion into government coffers over the next 20 years. Shahristani has said that only $30 billion of that sum will go to the companies that have extracted the oil.
"This is a huge amount that would finance infrastructure projects across Iraq - schools, roads, airports, housing, hospitals," he said, insisting that the country would retain control over its oil reserves. "Thanks to sanctions and war, no company has wanted or been able to invest," Ruba Husari, an energy expert and the founder of the Web site iraqoilforum.com, explained. "Today, the country is stable, in both its security and its institutions."
A source involved in the bidding, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described Iraq as "one of the rare countries in the world where the coming decades will bring real growth in production."