Kurdistan Oil & Gas Development

[Saipul]

The government of Iraq was greedy and chose to pursue the cheapest deals they could, mainly with Chinese companies, to developer their oil fields. They were also 'wary' of doing business with Western oil companies.

Thankfully for us, this was a completely stupid strategy. Now we have deals with ExxonMobil, the second-largest corporation in the world (Apple is first), Chevron, Gulf Keystone, and numerous other major American and international oil corporations.

[Rando]

i love the fact that we have so good relations with the west. They have the highest technology,and we can benefit greatly from that.

[talsor]

Interesting fact of the day: Kurdistan has over 50 International Oil Companies operating there, the rest of Iraq only has13

[alan131210]

Interesting fact of the day: Kurdistan has over 50 International Oil Companies operating there, the rest of Iraq only has13

And Mostly cheap Chinese infrastructure they have

[alan131210]

Baghdad has no right to dismiss oil deals signed with Kurdistan Region, says Genel Energy chairman



28/07/2012
 
ERBIL, July 28 (AKnews) – The chairman of Genel Energy Mehmet Sepil said international oil companies are signing deals with the Kurdistan Region and Baghdad has no right to dismiss these deals.

The company owns six production contracts in Kurdistan, reported SES Türkiye.

Oil deals between the Kurdistan Region and Turkey are creating tension with Baghdad. Turkish businessmen however are siding with the Kurdish region on this matter.

Sepil said: "Our company lawyers looked into the issue and saw no flaws. These deals are completely legal."

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh accused Turkey of illegally importing oil from Kurdistan, saying: "Oil and gas are the property of all Iraqis and those exports and revenues must be managed by the federal government which represents all Iraqis."

He also said that Turkey's actions may harm trade relations between the two countries

The agreement signed between Turkey and the Kurdistan Region earlier this month allows for the barter of oil and gas in exchange for refined petroleum products to meet the domestic demand of the region.

Chairman of the Turkish-Iraqi Business Council Ercument Aksoy at the Foreign Economic Relations Board said: "The rising tension between Baghdad and Ankara is a result of a conflict of interests within Iraq. It can only be resolved with a settlement between the Kurdistan Region and Baghdad."

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki insists that the Kurdistan Region has no right to sign unilateral deals and exports must go through the state-run pipelines. The Kurdish administration led by Massoud Barzani, on the other hand, claims that the Iraqi constitution gives them the right to sign agreements without Baghdad’s approval.

Head of the Global Political Trends Centre Mensur Akgun said the Maliki administration is trying to increase its influence over the Kurdistan Region.

Akgun added: "Turkey on the other hand is trying to enhance its ties with the Kurdistan Region to gain support for its struggle against militant groups of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party."

Akgun commented that Baghdad has a lot more to do to establish its internal authority, adding: "Maliki's government is representing a small fraction of Iraq."

[alan131210]

[alan131210]

Tony Hayward Loads Trucks With Kurdish Oil Awaiting Pipe: Energy

By Nayla Razzouk and Brian Swint - Jul 30, 2012 9:01 AM ET

Tony Hayward, the former chief executive officer at BP Plc (BP/), is now loading a fleet of as many as 500 trucks a day while he waits for a new pipeline to carry oil from his fields in KRG.

Since joining Genel Energy Plc (GENL) last year, Hayward has pushed the semi-autonomous Kurds to finish building a link to neighboring Turkey so he can find buyers outside the local market. Kurdish contractor Kar Group said it has completed 23 percent of the first 48-mile (77-kilometer) section of the line north to the border, though Turkey hasn’t said publicly it will take the oil.

Tony Hayward, seen here in a May 4, 2010 file photo as BP Plc's Chief Executive Officer, joined Genel Energy Plc last year. Photographer: Joshua Roberts/Bloomberg

Kurdish authorities, feuding with the central government over sharing oil revenue, plan in the next two years to complete the 175-mile export link that will start at a Genel-operated field and move as much as 1 million barrels a day, equal to a third of Iraq’s output now. Following Hayward into the region are Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) and Chevron Corp. (CVX), bolstering the Kurdish plan to break Baghdad’s control of shipping crude from the landlocked territory that’s ruled itself since the U.S.-led invasion ousted Saddam Hussein in 2003.

“This will be a transformational development for companies operating in the region,” Hayward, who ran Europe’s second- biggest oil company until 2010, said in an e-mailed response to questions. “It will allow the direct export of crude oil production to Turkey and international markets and accelerate the monetization process for resources” in the Kurdish region.

Course for Independence

Kurds, who historically have resisted control by Arab-dominated central governments, are charting a course to independently develop oil reserves that the Kurdistan Regional Government calculates at 45 billion barrels -- larger than BP’s estimate for the U.S. or Nigeria, Africa’s biggest producer.

The Kurdish region plans to increase output to 2 million barrels a day by 2019, Michael Howard, an adviser to Kurdistan Natural Resources Minister Ashti Hawrami, said in a June 10 phone interview. It has signed energy agreements with about 50 companies and plans to increase output to 1 million barrels a day by 2015 from about 300,000 barrels a day now, he said.

Kurdish authorities recognize production-sharing agreements, which give investors a share of any oil they may produce, whereas Iraq’s Oil Ministry offers only fee-based service contracts. This has attracted interest from investors such as Norway’s Statoil ASA (STL) that are unhappy with the central government’s contract terms for exploration and production.

Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and Total SA (FP) are flouting warnings by the government against seeking separate deals with the Kurds, whom Iraq’s Oil Ministry accuses of “smuggling” oil from the country.

Chevron Entry

Chevron, the second-largest U.S. energy company, said July 19 it will buy a majority stake in two Kurdish blocks. The Oil Ministry responded five days later by barring Chevron from doing business in the rest of Iraq. Similarly, the ministry punished Exxon for investing in the Kurdish region by excluding it from an energy-licensing round in May.

Separate deals between the Kurds and foreign investors are “illegal and illegitimate,” and Chevron “should feel ashamed about what it did,” the ministry said July 24 in an e-mailed statement. “These agreements grant the oil companies a large share of crude production and are thus a squandering of the national wealth.”

The Kurdish pipeline project resembles one that enables the United Arab Emirates to circumvent politically inspired shutdowns of oil exports. The U.A.E., also a member state of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, began shipping crude on July 16 through a pipeline from Abu Dhabi to the Indian Ocean port of Fujairah, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz, the transit corridor Iran threatened to shut earlier this year in response to sanctions on its nuclear program.

Revenue Dispute

DNO International ASA (DNO) is among companies pumping crude at Kurdish fields that have one main export route, the central government’s pipeline from the city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, Turkey. A dispute over oil contracts and revenue-sharing prompted Kurdish authorities to halt flows into this network on April 1. Producers now must sell their oil locally or send small loads by truck into Turkey.

Kar Group expects to complete the Kurdish pipeline’s first section, linking the fields of Taq Taq and Khurmala, by the end of the year, the company’s project manager Besoon Jalizada said in a telephone interview on July 17. Kurdish authorities will probably seek bids for construction of the remaining part of the system, from Khurmala to the Turkish border, he said.

Pipeline Capacity

The first phase will have a capacity of about 200,000 barrels a day, a Genel official said on July 23, declining to be identified because the pipeline is being built and financed by Kurdish authorities and not Genel.

The pipeline plan “seems quite provocative,” Ivor Pether, a fund manager at Royal London Asset Management which oversees $60 billion of securities, said in a June 26 e-mail. “The risk is obviously that it may take a long time to agree how to divide the oil revenues, or even that the relationship between Kurdistan and Baghdad breaks down.”

The Kurds are seeking closer cooperation with Turkey amid a political impasse in Baghdad, where opposition groups accuse Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of abusing power. Al-Maliki and other Iraqi leaders have said they worry that the planned pipeline may make the Kurds economically self-sufficient and embolden them to seek independence.

Iraq has faced a series of violent attacks since the pullout of U.S. troops in December, including the killing of 115 people in a wave of nationwide bombings claimed by an Al-Qaeda affiliate group on July 25.

Turkey’s Role

Turkey, with its own restive Kurdish minority, is ready to work with Iraq’s Kurds on the construction of oil and natural- gas pipelines provided the central government in Baghdad agrees, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said in an interview in Ankara on July 5.

At the same time, he said, the Turkish and Iraqi governments have committed to repair a link to Kirkuk from Basra in southern Iraq to help boost the amount of oil sent into Turkey through the established Kirkuk-to-Ceyhan network.

Hayward said he’s not surprised that Exxon, Chevron, Total or Eni SpA would be interested in Kurdistan. “This only serves to reaffirm our long-held belief in the enormous opportunities that exist,” he said.

bloomberg

[zaxo10]

from which oil field in bashur the Pipelines go to turkey?

[alan131210]

Kirkuk, taqtaq and sheikan the rest will be used for local usage

[burnsss]

Total buying into two kurdistan blocks, and thereby pointing the middle finger at the Iranian agents in Bagdad.
source http://www.marketwatch.com/story/total- ... 2012-07-31

[alan131210]

Great news thanks Heval

[alan131210]

Total completes acquisition of 35 pct stake in two blocks

* Blocks held by Marathon Oil; Risks wrath of Baghdad

* Total to operator of Safen block development

PARIS, July 31 (Reuters) - French oil company Total has bought a 35 percent stake in two exploration blocks in the Kurdistan region, risking the wrath of the Iraqi government which has tried to bar companies from dealing directly with the semi-autonomous region.

Total, which is following U.S. rivals into the area, said it bought stakes in the Harir and Safen blocks from U.S. peer Marathon Oil, ignoring an earlier veiled warning from Iraq's central government in Baghdad to refrain from deals with the region in the north of the country without its approval.

"The Baghdad authorities were kept informed of Total's intentions," a Total spokesman said on Tuesday, declining to comment further.

Total's investment comes as it seeks to grow its annual oil production by 2.5 percent on average at $100 a barrel through to 2015. But lower output in this year's second quarter due to several disruptions led Total to refrain from reiterating the target for this year, referring to an investor day in September for details.

Iraqi oil officials in Baghdad did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment about the Total move. A spokesman for the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) did not immediately answer a request for details.

Total's Chief Executive Christophe de Margerie had signalled in February that the group was considering investments in Kurdistan since contractual conditions there were better than in the rest of Iraq where it and its partners began production at the south-eastern Halfaya field in June.

Both fields in the Marathon Oil deal are located south of Iraq's border with Turkey. Seismic exploration of both fields is expected to be completed by September.

The first exploration well on the Harir field was drilled on Monday and the first exploration well on the Safen field will be drilled next year, Marathon Oil said.

"These are enormous blocks. There's rarely a disappointment in exploration in Kurdistan," said a Paris-based analyst who declined to be named.

"They have a permit in the south of Iraq and at the worst the government could renegotiate concessions or withdraw the license. But these wells are not very profitable," he said.

He cited the exit of Statoil and Exxon as evidence of their disappointment with the wells and the terms that Baghdad has set for oil majors to operate them.

He said the challenge for Total and its peers doing business in Kurdistan would be to transport the product, as Baghdad could block the use of its pipelines in the south.

The deal will further strain ties between Baghdad and the KRG which is caught up in a long-running political feud over oil rights and disputed territories along its hazy internal border.

Exxon Mobil became the first oil major to move into the northern region of Iraq in mid-October when it signed a deal with the KRG. Norway's Statoil is also looking closely at KRG exploration deals, industry sources have said.

The Iraqi central government in Baghdad considers that any oil contracts signed with Kurdistan are illegal and it blacklisted Chevron Corp, which followed Exxon into Kurdistan this month, over such a deal.

Autonomous since 1991, Kurdistan has its own government and armed forces, but still relies on the central government for its budget drawn from the OPEC nation's oil revenues.

Kurdish officials accuse Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shi'ite, of amassing power at the expense of Sunni and Kurdish minorities, but Baghdad says Kurdistan is breaking with the constitution by signing deals with foreign companies.

Increasingly chaffing against Baghdad's authority, Kurdistan is testing the central government with proposals for a more independent energy policy.

Kurdistan one of the most prosperous regions in the ME, has been isolated from the violence and sectarian strife that still beset the rest of Iraq.

reuters

[alan131210]

and with the great news to Kurdish people, Shahristani starts its anti-KRG rhetorics again
i wonder who has NOT been put in the black list by this failure guy, which decent oil company is going to be left working in Iraq !!?? Chinese infrastructure !??



Shahistani to total: "if you do not abandon this deal we will put you in a black list".

http://www.nrttv.com/dreje.aspx?jimare=19623

[brendar]

Shahistani to total: "if you do not abandon this deal we will put you in a black list".

Does anyone even listen to this iraqi government. Actually, is it even a government?

[burnsss]

Krg will resume oil export this week at 100 000 b/d. This will increase to 200 000 by next month if Iraq pays for it.
source http://krg.org/articles/detail.asp?rnr= ... &anr=44888