Kurdistan Oil & Gas Development

[alan131210]

KRG can actually suffocate iraq with this method once iran shuts Hormoz gateway , speaking of playing your cards right , KRG well done once again .

[alan131210]

Sources in Baghdad have told Iraq Business News that Exxon Mobil has decided to abandon its contract at the giant West Qurna-1 oilfield in Southern Iraq, in favour of pursuing its interests in Iraqi Kurdistan.

In recent days the Iraqi Ministry for Oil has claimed to have received a second letter from Exxon in which it says it has “frozen” its contracts with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG); the KRG, on the other hand, denies that this is the case, and has described Baghdad’s claims as “rubbish”.

Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson said earlier last month that the company was committed to both exploring in Kurdistan, as well as to expanding its West Qurna output.

If this latest rumour is true, it would be a huge blow to the government of Nouri al-Maliki, and could jeopardise the planned 4th round of energy licences due to be auctioned at the end of May.

Exxon is the lead contractor at West Qurna-1, with a 60% stake, while Shell has 15% and the remaining 25% belongs to the Iraqi state.

http://www.iraq-businessnews.com/2012/0 ... est-qurna/

[alan131210]

RANIYA, Kurdistan Region -- The American petroleum company Hess has signed a contract with the Kurdistan Region’s Ministry of Natural Resources.

The upstream oil contract allows Hess to look for oil around 27 villages in the Koya, Raniya and Shaqlawa districts of Kurdistan.

For its part, Hess has sub-contracted Chinese JJFZ Company to do oil exploration designated by the Kurdish government.

"The contact was initially given to Hess and the company subcontracted us to explore the areas covered in the contact. If weather permits, we will finish the exploration part of the contract in six months," Sheikh Dilawar Jalal, JJFZ's representative, told Rudaw.

According to local officials, if oil is found in those areas, wells will be dug and refineries built.

Hussein Ahmed, mayor of the Betwata district of Raniya, told Rudaw, ‘‘The company has built a camp in the Siktan district of Rania. It has designated several areas in our district and surrounding districts to explore for oil.”

Ahmed is ambivalent about the quality of oil in his area.

"It's not known whether oil can be found in these areas or not,” he says. “Even if found, will it be worthwhile digging wells for it? Will the oil be of good quality?”

Ahmed maintained that preliminary explorations in the area have proven the existence of oil.

The mayor says he has spoken with the oil company about compensating farmers whose lands might be affected by the explorations.

"The company promised us that they would compensate farmers," Ahmed said.

Sheikh Muhammad Haji Brayim, chief of the Siktan district, says as long as the companies compensate the residents of the area, people won’t get in the way of their explorations.

"So far, the people in our district have no issues with the company,” he says. “The company has promised to compensate us if our lands are used in their projects."

Regarding compensating villagers who live in the area, Jalal said, “We have formed a three-member committee to compensate farmers who lose their crops due to the search for oil, but there will be no compensation for lands currently not cultivated."

Jalal also denied allegations that a number of villages would have to be evacuated.

“No village will be evacuated," he said.

http://www.rudaw.net/english/kurds/4593.html

[alan131210]

KRP.org 03:48:13 06 Apr. 2012
Exxon Mobil Committed to its Contract with KRG

Washington, USA (KRP.org) - In a meeting with President Masoud Barzani in Washington DC this week, the CEO of Exxon Mobil, Rex Tillerson stated that Exxon Mobil will continue its operations in the Kurdistan Region.

The oil major singed a contract with the KRG last year to explore six fields in Kurdistan. Mr. Tillerson said Exxon Mobil is committed to the contracts that it has signed with both the Iraq government and with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

http://www.krg.org/articles/detail.asp? ... &anr=43525
http://www.krp.org/english/articledisplay.aspx?id=25935

[hevalo27]

when it is sure that exxon leaves west qurna, then please post it here.
i will lough und die whit a smile in the face

[alan131210]

The Iraqi Oil Ministry (MoO) issued an order to discharge Abdulqadir Omer, Director of the Kirkuk Oil Products Directorate (OPD), as a member of the Kirkuk Provincial Council (KPC) and promises to investigate the issue.

In a statement to Kirkuk Now, Omer said, “A directive was sent to our directorate for my resignation, as I informed Kirkuk Governor Nejmadin Karim about it.” He added, “The decision was held without any reason. I will stay in my post as the governor says, until the MoO explains the order.”

Ahmed Askari, a member of the KPC said, “We haven’t received any formal order as the KPC, but we will investigate the case to know the reason.” He added, “Until the order is received and the decision explained, Abdulqadir will stay in his post.”

Nergiz Qadir

Short URL: http://kirkuknow.com/english/?p=9081

[alan131210]

Now those cockroaches in Baghdad better think again Kurds are not Kurds of before 2003


Second explosion hits Iraq-Turkey oil pipeline
07/04/2012 16:31
 
ERBIL, April 7 (AKnews) - A second explosion this morning hit the pipeline that carries Iraqi oil from Kirkuk fields through Turkey to the Ceyhan port.

An explosion hit the pipeline in Idil area, Sirnak province, last week causing interruption of oil exports through the line for one day until the fire was put out by Turkish authorities.

Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels claimed responsibility for the attack.

The explosion today took place in the same area, according to the pro-PKK Firat news agency.

The explosion took place about 4km from the Idil town at 03:00 am, the agency reported.

By Abdulkadir al-Wanwadi

AKnew.com

[diako_ber]

^^ hahahaha nice! The Arabs in Baghdad should be more afraid of the Kurds, because although we are landlocked, we still have a strategic position to prevent the Arabs from importing and exporting.

[hevalo27]

An explosion hit the pipeline in Idil area, Sirnak province,

heheheheheheeh

my mother comes from idil (kurdish: hezex). it was only 1-2 kilometre distant from my mothers village.
my aunt sayd at phone, there were a big explosion, a lot of smoke and the houses had vibrate.
they dont know what it was and dont sleep all the night,

now i know what it was good work PKK and not stopping. help your brothers in southkurdistan

[alan131210]

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – An oil advisor to the Kurdistan Regional Government says that most of Kirkuk’s oil reserves have been extracted, with only around 30 percent remaining.

According to Hama Jaza Salih, the Iraqi government has made US$82 billion from oil fields in Kurdish and disputed areas outside the borders of the autonomous Kurdistan Region.

Since the discovery of Iraq’s first oil field in Kirkuk in 1927, the multiethnic province has become a center of conflict in the country. With an eye on Kirkuk’s oil wealth, successive Iraqi governments have sought to expel Kurds and Turkomans from the area to turn it into an Arab-dominated province.

Kirkuk’s oil reserves were estimated at 25 billion barrels, Salih says, and so far approximately 15 billion barrels have been extracted.

According to some figures, the Iraqi government sold around 80 million barrels of oil from the Kirkuk oilfields last year.

In the Iraqi constitution, Kirkuk is considered a “disputed territory,” with both Erbil and Baghdad having a claim on the province. But the Iraqi government controls the province’s natural resources and Kurds are excluded from oil affairs in that territory.

Salih says the Kurdistan Region’s oil reserves are estimated at around 50 billion barrels. He believes that further exploration could lead to new fields, raising the figure to 100 billion barrels in the next five years.

According to Iraq’s National Oil Company, the country sold over 141 million barrels of oil last year, of which 79 million were produced in Kirkuk and other Kurdish-dominated disputed areas. Each barrel was sold at $104, according to the company, making the revenue from oil fields in Kirkuk and the disputed areas nearly $83 billion.

A senior official at Kurdistan’s Ministry of Natural Resources says that Kurdistan sold an average of 90,000 to 100,000 barrels of oil per day last year. The $4 billion of Kurdistan’s oil revenue was deposited at the central treasury in Baghdad.

Meanwhile, the Kurdish government suspended its oil exports last week because the Iraqi government refused to pays the companies that search for and extract oil in Kurdistan.

According to an agreement between Erbil and Baghdad, the federal government has to pay 50 percent of the fees to oil companies, but it has failed to do so for the past 10 months. Baghdad owes around $1.5 billion to companies drilling in Kurdistan.

One day after Kurdistan’s decision to halt its oil exploration, Iraq’s deputy prime minister and former minister of oil, Hussein Shahrestani, threatened to punish the Kurdish government. He said the federal government would deduct the damage caused by the KRG’s oil suspension from the annual budget sent to Kurdistan from Baghdad.

“As soon as Baghdad has paid the fees, Kurdistan will immediately resume oil exports,” said the official at Kurdish Ministry of Natural Resources, who requested anonymity.

He added that the Kurdistan Region could increase its oil production to 175,000 barrels a day, thus adding $7.5 billion worth of revenue to the coffers of Iraq.

Although Iraq’s Oil Minister Abdulkarim Luaibi stated last week that international oil giant, ExxonMobil, had frozen its deal with Kurdistan, officials at the Kurdish Ministry of Natural Resources dismissed his claim.

In a meeting with Kurdish President Massoud Barzani in Washington last week, the head of ExxonMobil reaffirmed his company’s commitment to its deal with the KRG.

There are 119 oil fields in Kurdistan. If the disputed areas were to become part of Kurdistan, the region’s oil fields could number as many as 500, according to the source at the Kurdish Ministry of Natural Resources. Work is currently going on in 12 new fields in Kurdistan, he said.

The KRG has signed 47 oil deals with international firms so far, but opposition groups say the deals are not “transparent.”

Salih calls himself “the father of Kurdistan’s oil.” He says he was the first engineer to drill for oil in 1994 in the Taqtaq area.

He says Taqtaq’s oil is of the best quality, even better than that of Texas. Taqtaq’s oil is referred to as “Champagne” among oil experts in Kurdistan, Salih says.

Since the production of oil in Taqtaq in 2006, around 12 million barrels have been extracted from the area. Its total reserves are estimated at 2 billion barrels.

Salih said Kurdistan is also rich in minerals such as iron, copper, gold, marble and granite.“The marble is a very expensive type … It can compete with Italian and Turkish marbles,” he said.

According to Salih, there is also uranium in Kurdistan, more than anywhere else in Iraq.

http://www.rudaw.net/english/kurds/4607.html

[alan131210]

[16:06] 12/Apr/10

PNA-Sunday Times — the oil lynchpin of Iraqi Kurdistan Ashti Hawrami is the oil minister of Kurdistan. He is the architect of the boom that has seen production rise from 2,000 barrels a day five years ago to 250,000 today in this once overlooked part of Iraq. He is also Mr A.

The Financial Services Authority’s decision last week to fine Ian Hannam for market abuse was littered with mentions of a mystery man who received the two emails that snared JP Morgan Cazenove’s star dealmaker.

The fact that it was Hawrami raises questions about the FSA’s interpretation of the law. He is not a fund manager or any kind of “market participant” in the traditional sense. He is, though, a revered figure in his homeland.

Hawrami was born in 1948 in Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan’s second city, but has spent most of his career in Britain.

After leaving Baghdad University with a degree in oil engineering, he worked for the national oil company before moving to Scotland in 1975, where he spent seven years with British National Oil Corporation.

He gained a PhD in oil engineering while in Scotland, and then had a series of jobs at consultancies and engineering firms during the 1980s and 1990s.

In 1999, he was appointed chief executive of ECL Group, which he ran for several years. A quiet retirement at his mansion in Henley-on- Thames, Berkshire, was not to be. In 2006, the regional authorities in Kurdistan asked him to become the oil minister.

His task? Build an industry from scratch.

When he took control, there was one 1970s oil well in Kurdistan producing just 2,000 barrels a day.

He offered generous terms to entice explorers to the region, which had been ignored for decades. More than 40 signed up.

Many have since found oil, including Genel Energy, now run by Tony Hayward, the former BP boss. Gulf Keystone, another London-listed group, has seen its shares soar after it made a big find. At £1.9 billion, it is the largest company on AIM, the junior market.

Baghdad says, however, that the contracts Hawrami struck were illegal because they were not done through the federal ministry in Iraq.

The dispute between Baghdad and Kurdistan is worsening — this month the Kurds shut down exports to the rest of Iraq.

Under the constitution, all oil revenues must be booked through the federal ministry in Baghdad and then redistributed. The Kurds are entitled to 17%, which is their proportion of the overall population.

They claim that Baghdad has withheld at least $1.5 billion (£720m) that is rightfully theirs. The regional government has raised tensions further by giving refuge to Tariq al-Hashimi, the Iraqi vice-president who fled after the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, accused him of running death squads. Maliki has demanded the Kurds hand him over. They have refused.

Hawrami, meanwhile, has continued to draw in billions of investment. His biggest coup came in November, when he announced that Exxon Mobil, then the world’s biggest oil company, had bought the rights to six exploration zones.

It was the first time one of the industry’s giants had dared to cross Baghdad by dealing with the Kurds. And the oil minister may be about to bag another big name — Total, the French group, is also close to signing an exploration deal.

Hawrami has set a target of producing 1m barrels a day within three years. Some dismiss that as fanciful. Even if it is, the boom he has engineered is extraordinary.

[alan131210]

Talks Over Developing Kirkuk Field Highlight Differences Between Iraq’s Government and Kurds Over Oil In Disputed Territories

10/04/2012

By Joel Wing*

Tensions between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the central government over oil are heating up once again. In March 2012, the Oil Ministry announced that it was in talks with British Petroleum, and two oil service companies to develop the Kirkuk oil field in Tamim province. It is located in a disputed territory, which the Kurds lay claim to. Quoting the 2005 Constitution, Kurdish officials demanded that no government office or foreign corporation could work there without their permission. Rather than wanting to be consulted however, the KRG is demanding de facto control of the field.

In late-March 2012, Oil Minister Abdul Karim Luaibi said that he was in negotiations with several companies to work on the Kirkuk oil field. The Minister said British Petroleum (BP); along with the oil service companies Baker Hughes and Schlumberger Ltd. were all involved. The field is currently producing between 280,000 to 300,000 barrels a day. BP has given technical advice on Kirkuk before, and the Oil Ministry is hoping that it could boost production there to 600,000 barrels. When the news broke, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) demanded that Baghdad get its permission before signing any contract for the field, claiming that it had that right under the 2005 Constitution. It cited Article 112, which states that the federal government, producing provinces, and the regional government would all manage oil producing fields. The Kurds have made these types of demands before, but is especially concerned in this matter. That’s because it involves the Kirkuk area, which of all the disputed territories, is preeminent in the minds of Kurdish politicians. While the KRG is quoting the constitution, it, and the Oil Ministry, tend to only interpret it to their benefit. For instance, neither the Ministry nor the KRG consults with each other in developing fields, and almost completely ignore the authorities in the provinces where the petroleum resides. The Kurds also have seven other contracts in disputed territories, and did not include Baghdad in any of them.

Later, the Kurdish online magazine Rudaw reported that the two service companies involved were giving the Kurds inside information on any talks. It claimed that Schlumberger and Baker Hughes wrote a letter to the KRG telling them that they had not signed anything with the Oil Ministry, and that they would inform them if any progress was made involving them and BP. The magazine went on to say that BP officials were in Irbil to scout locations in Kirkuk to do work, but that the Kurdish Interior Ministry refused to give them any security, forcing them to withdraw. The reason why the two service corporations would inform the KRG of this news was because they already have contracts with the Kurds, and probably did not want to anger them, and possibly jeopardize their on-going work.

The Kirkuk field is the oldest in the country. It was the first to be developed in Iraq, and has reserves of around 10 billion barrels. Its age is taking a toll on production however, as it has been going down in the last few years. In 2001 for example, it was pumping 900,000 barrels a day three times what it is doing today. There have been repeated warnings that it needs large investments if it wants to even maintain its current levels of output, let alone increase it. Since 2009, the Oil Ministry has been making major moves to entice foreign companies to enter its oil market and work on its fields. Kirkuk has consistently been part of these plans, but the trouble with the Kurds has stopped anything major from happening.

In June 2009 for instance, the Oil Ministry offered Kirkuk up for auction in its first bidding round for international energy firms. Shell, Sinopec, and Turkish Petroleum put together an offer, but couldn’t come to terms with the government. Then, just as now, the Kurds threatened to not provide protection at the field if it didn’t have a say in the field’s development. It claimed that if any deals were signed, it would violate the constitution. This is the same stance that the KRG is taking today.

The Kurds have been more forceful with other fields in Tamim province, such as Khurmala Dome. In December 2004, the Oil Ministry inked a $136 million agreement with the KAR Group to service the field to boost production. The Kurds have claimed that Khurmala Dome is historically part of Irbil province, and administered the northern and middle section of it. The KRG stepped in to stop the KAR deal. Then in November 2007, peshmerga prevented workers from the state-run North Oil Company from operating at the field. In June 2008, the same thing happened, this time leading to a 24-hour standoff with government forces. Production at the field was temporarily shut down as a result. That time, the Kurds claimed that not only was the entire field under its control, but that it wasn’t even in a disputed area, but rather in Kurdistan proper. In November 2008, the Oil Ministry held a meeting with KRG Premier Nechirvan Barzani about oil. The two sides agreed to jointly operate the Khurmala field. That was a rare occasion where the Kurds and Baghdad actually consulted with each other, but rather than following the law they were instead cutting political deals over the matter. That’s likely what will be needed if the Oil Ministry wants to go ahead with its current talks over the Kirkuk field.

When it comes to developing petroleum in disputed areas, both the Oil Ministry and Kurdistan follow double standards. The Kurds quote the constitution, but instead of looking for cooperation with the central government over fields, they want de facto control of the natural resources in the disputed territories. That’s seen in the seven contracts they have already in those areas, and the Exxon deal they are moving ahead with, which also includes three disputed fields. Baghdad on the other hand, also claims sole rights to work on oil and natural gas, and consults with no one about its plans. Given this situation, progress on Kirkuk will require talks, which may not work out given the charged feelings Tamim province invokes amongst Kurds. A political compromise may be possible over the matter, but it will not be easy, meaning that the field will continue to deteriorate in the meantime. This highlights just one of many problems that Iraq faces in developing its petroleum.

*With an MA in International Relations, Joel Wing has been researching and writing about Iraq since 2002. His acclaimed blog, Musings on Iraq, is currently listed by the New York Times and the World Politics Review. In addition, Mr. Wing’s work has been cited by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Guardian and the Washington Independent.

AKnews

[alan131210]

^^^^^ that is how much power KRG has in general and the amount of control over Kirkuk's future field developments , and in no way it will let anyone dig for new fields cos once the old baba fields dries up , Peshmerga will take it back and no one would have much say then and accuse KRG of taking over "oil" in the province since there will be none left .

according to KRG's oil adviser , there is only 30% of oil left in baba oil fields , soon after this article the iraqi oil ministry announced well #1 of baba dried up .

[alan131210]

Employer: Crescent Dana Gas
174 km 24" ,1 km 16"
Total : 175 km









2 Qnt 24" Pig (Receiver) Station
2 Qnt 24" Pig (Launcher) Station
4 Qnt 24" Mainline Valve Station
1 Qnt 16" Take-off Valve Station

http://www.vemak.com.tr/eng/completed/erbil.html#

[hevalo27]

is this the new oil-pipeline which is building by genel energy?