BAGHDAD, 26 November 2005 — Iraq is making efforts to invite world oil specialist companies to invest in its oil sector so that Baghdad can regain its pre-war levels of oil production, a top energy official told state-run Al-Iraqiya television.
“Iraq is endeavoring to bring foreign investments worth $38 billion to increase its oil production,” Ahmed Chalabi, deputy prime minister and head of the country’s Energy Council, said late Thursday. “Iraq has the ideal conviction that its current production should reach up to three times to be six million barrels per day (bpd) within four years,” he said.
He said this can only be realized through foreign investments.
Iraq’s present production is still below the 1990 Gulf War levels which exceeded three million bpd.
Iraq and Russia began this week resolving the controversy surrounding oil contracts the two countries signed under Saddam Hussein. “The Iraqi Oil Ministry and Russian companies are holding negotiations on the future of previously signed contracts,” Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said in Moscow on Tuesday. Examining contracts signed with Russia will be high on the agenda of Iraq’s new government, the minister said.
Meanwhile, Finance Minister Ali Abdul Amir Allawi told a press conference Thursday that Iraq’s budget for 2006 will not allow Baghdad continue importing fuel from its neighbors worth $500 million per month.
Meanwhile, oil prices fell yesterday, with supplies of heating fuel deemed adequate to meet demand during the northern hemisphere winter despite the onset of freezing weather in the region.
In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude for January delivery fell 14 cents to $55.16 per barrel in electronic dealing.
On Wednesday, New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in January, had closed down 13 cents at $58.71 per barrel.
US traders were away from their desks until Monday owing to the Thanksgiving long holiday weekend across the Atlantic.
“Brent crude futures fell almost a dollar yesterday (Thursday) in thin trade in a continuation of the selling from Wednesday after US data showed a larger than expected rise in distillate stocks, easing concern about supplies for the winter season,” analysts at the Sucden brokerage firm said.
The higher inventory levels suggest that US oil companies have been able to rebuild their stocks thanks to milder weather, after their operations were battered by hurricanes in August and September.
