Plus:
*China starts Ahdab project
*Iraq earns more than $60B in oil sales in 2008
*but low prices aren’t the only trouble on the horizon
*Coalition rebuilds Iraq Navy, guarding oil tankers
*Iraq signs $70M Pratt & Whitney turbine deal
*Torture continues: genital mutilation of girls in northern Iraq
*Iraq Press Roundup
Iraq’s Oil Ministry has opened a new pre-qualification application process for firms that didn’t pass the cut for the first round of oil and gas field bidding, Ben Lando reports for United Press International.
“The Petroleum Contracts and Licensing Directorate (PCLD) of the Ministry of Oil is pleased to announce the second pre-qualification process to qualify the non-qualified International Oil Companies, which were not qualified in the First Licensing Round, in addition to the IOCs that did not submit their documents in the said round,” PCLD Director General Natik Al-Bayati said in an announcement released Monday.
Interested firms have until Feb. 1 to complete a new application process, which includes a non-refundable payment of $10,000. The ministry on Dec. 31 announced another 12 individual oil and gas fields or collection of fields that will be offered for bidding by international oil companies.
For the announcement from Bayati: Click Here.
For the qualification forms: Click Here.
The Chinese National Petroleum Company (CNPC) started work on a $3 billion oil project in Iraq on Friday, the first foreign firm to begin such work since dictator Saddam Hussein nationalized the industry decades ago, Ahmed Rasheed reports for Reuters.
A CNPC delegation formally opened the al-Ahdab oi field project in Iraq’s eastern province of Wasit, officials there said.
Iraq earned about $60 billion from average crude oil sales of 1.85 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2008, Miriam Karouny reports for Reuters.
The revenue increase was helped by a surge in oil prices and an anticipated rise in exports at the start of this year should help offset the crash in the market from a record high above $147 hit in July.
“Our target is 2 million (bpd) in January. If the weather is good and the tankers arrive on time, then we will reach two million bpd,” Falah Alamri, head of Iraq’s State Oil Market Orgnanisation.
Where did this money go? asks capital city blogger Baghdad’s Kassakhoon:
Did we see electricity 24 hours a day? NO. Did we see clean water coming out from the tap? NO. Did we see new hospitals? NO.Did we see new bridges and streets? NO.Did we see good food ration suitable for human beings and not only fit to chicken? NO.Did we see new residential compounds? NO and NO and NO and NO….
Did we see government officials in elegant western suits traveling in motorcades of modern armored vehicles? YES. Did we see new military vehicles and weapons? YES. Did we see more concrete walls? YES. Did we see sidewalks being built by Baghdad’s Municipality workers and the next day the same workers demolish them to be built again the next day? YES and YES and YES and YES and YES…
According to the U.S. State Department’s Dec. 31 Iraq Weekly Status Report, last year Iraq raised $60.9 billion in oil sales. While the price of oil is easy to spot — rapidly increasing through May and then starting its drop to today — Iraq’s export numbers haven’t been that consistent, as UPI’s Ben Lando reported when Iraq’s most recent official monthly export numbers were released last month.
There’s a catch, however, to sustaining and improving Iraq’s ability to send its massive oil reserves to market: its southern pipeline and terminal export infrastructure is in urgent need of repair. Ben Lando reported for UPI on the slow but important progress Iraq’s Oil Ministry is making to head off what would be an economic and environmental disaster.
Only a small number of Iraqi and Coalition forces are based at the southern port city of Um Qasr, but they’re guarding most of Iraq’s wealth, CBS Radio’s Cami McCormick reports.
“We realized (five years ago) we destroyed the Iraqi Navy and we needed to re-build it for their own protection,” says British Royal Navy Lt. Commander Dave Walken-Gossen.
“About a billion dollars a week passes through these oil platforms and that’s protected by the Iraqi Navy — about 2,000 people,” adds Walken-Gossen. That oil “accounts for about 90 percent of Iraq’s Gross National Product… all of the money that’s supporting reconstruction and rebuilding is relying on these two platforms.”
Iraq has signed a $70 million agreement to buy power generating turbines from the U.S. engineering firm Pratt & Whitney, part of United Technologies Corp., Reuters reports.
Iraq will buy five power generating units which can operate on fuel oil or gas and generate 180 megawatts of power, said Aziz Sultan, head of the electricity ministry’s media office. The new units should be ready by June this year, he said.
Gulf Arabs invest heavily in Kurdish north of Iraq as $16 billion dollars from the region have been promised so far, Azzaman reports.
For Kurdish Girls, a Painful Ancient Ritual: The widespread practice of female circumcision in Iraq’s north highlights the plight of women in a region often seen as more socially progressive, reports The Washington Post’s Amit R. Paley.
Sheelan Anwar Omer, a shy 7-year-old Kurdish girl, bounded into her neighbor’s house with an ear-to-ear smile, looking for the party her mother had promised.
There was no celebration. Instead, a local woman quickly locked a rusty red door behind Sheelan, who looked bewildered when her mother ordered the girl to remove her underpants. Sheelan began to whimper, then tremble, while the women pushed apart her legs and a midwife raised a stainless-steel razor blade in the air.
As the midwife sliced off part of Sheelan’s genitals, the girl let out a high-pitched wail heard throughout the neighborhood.
Read what Iraqis read: the Iraq Press Roundup by UPI’s Alaa Majeed.
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