Word: oil
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...Until recently, that change looked like it might never happen. Last summer, Iraq's government hosted an auction for eight large oil and gas fields at Baghdad's high-end Al-Rashid Hotel. There, oil executives from the U.S., Europe, Russia, China and South Korea paraded on stage and dropped their bids into a sealed box, in a ceremony broadcast live on Iraqi television. It was meant to be grand theater, but proved a p.r. failure for Baghdad. Just one bid succeeded: it was submitted by a partnership between Britain's BP and China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) for production...
...auction's failure was due in part to the government's inflexibility. Baghdad is under pressure by Iraq's feisty oil unions and politicians, who have accused leaders of aiming to sell the country's riches on the cheap to gain a little short-term relief for the economy. Oil executives argued they should be paid as much as $3.99 a barrel - nearly double the government offer - because of the risks involved. Operating in Iraq means investing billions in an unstable country where foreign oil workers are routinely kidnapped and insurgents have blown hundreds of holes in pipelines. Rochdi Younsi...
...government may have been right all along. After months of sticking to their demands, oil companies now are agreeing to Iraq's $2-a-barrel offer. In mid-November, Italian oil executives from ENI flew to Baghdad to sign a deal on Zubair, a southern Iraq field with about 4.1 billion barrels of reserves. ENI plans to pump about 1.1 million barrels a day from Zubair in partnership with California-based Occidental Petroleum and South Korea's Kogas. ENI was quickly followed by ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell, which agreed to produce about 2.3 million barrels a day in another...
...catalyst for the flurry of agreements appears to be the BP-CNPC deal, Iraq's first international oil contract in nearly four decades. The British and Chinese companies won the right to drill for 20 years in what is believed to be one of the world's four largest fields with potential reserves of about 65 billion barrels. Though it will earn only $2 a barrel, BP says it aims to keep expenses down by using low-cost Chinese labor and equipment. The group promised Iraq's government that it will nearly triple the field's output from 1 million...
...oil companies, establishing similar relationships with Baghdad could prove crucial, and highly profitable. As oil supplies dwindle in places like the North Sea and Gabon, companies are desperate to book new reserves - and Iraq, which unlike Kuwait or Saudi Arabia is incapable of producing its oil without foreign know-how and investment, is up for grabs. Unlike huge new finds off Mexico, Brazil and West Africa, many Iraqi fields were mapped years ago - some by the same companies now negotiating new contracts - and so will not require lengthy exploration before pumping can begin...