BAGHDAD (AFP) — Many major global oil companies have stayed away from the first Iraq Energy Expo which opened in Baghdad on Friday, amid uncertainty about plans for oil production partnerships.
ConocoPhillips of the United States and Russia's Lukoil and Gazpromneft are among 40 exhibitors, but BP, Exxon and Total are absent although they say they want to return to Iraq after being thrown out by then dictator Saddam Hussein 36 years ago.
The three-day oil conference and show at a new exhibition centre near Baghdad International Airport is the first of its kind in Iraq since an international embargo was imposed in 1990 after Saddam launched an invasion of Kuwait.
With an estimated 115 barrels of crude oil deposits, Iraq has the world's third largest reserves behind Saudi Arabia and Iran.
"We need your technical support to rebuild Iraq. We promise you full cooperation," Hussein Shahristani, the oil minister, told foreign oil companies at the opening of the event.
The minister's plan envisages a tripling of oil exports to six million barrels a day by 2018.
Shahristani said the authorities are "in the home straight" before awarding contracts, after the Iraqi government in October invited tenders for eight tempting oil contracts.
An executive from Gazpromneft, the oil division of Russian gas giant Gazprom, believes his company's prospects could be boosted by previous Russian experience in Iraq under Saddam's regime.
"It is like the kalashnikov. The Russians and Chinese have technologies, certainly more primitive but which are the most appropriate for the Iraqis at this stage of their development," the executive said.
The Iraqis say they are optimistic about their capacity to attract investors, thanks to the relative improvement in security in the war-torn country.
However, some companies already working in Iraq are dissatisfied with progress.
"Since we have been here, we haven't made money," an executive of a US oil company said. "We sent some expert teams, then we took them back (as) we had no results. There are far too many problems."
Because of a lack of investment and modernisation of ageing installations, Iraq produces only 2.4 million barrels a day, including two million for export, way below peak levels in the 1980s when it exported 3.4 million barrels a day.
1 comment:
Iraq will do very well with the sale of oil. Now that the US crime team is finished we'll see alot of changes in business. Look for Halliburton and Darth Cheney to be squeezed out.
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