Iraq’s newly founded Iraq National Oil Company was created to fairly distribute they nation’s oil wealth to its citizens. Having a national oil company is a good idea in that it can coordinate otherwise disparate and sometimes counter-productive development initiatives by a range of state entities. In Iraq, it remains a truism that the greater the concentration of power over oil and money in one place, the more monumental the scale of corruption becomes. The last few days saw the first meeting of the new iteration of the Iraq National Oil Company (INOC), with the agenda being ‘the five-year plan for the oil exploration sector, and interim and future production and export plans’, according to the official notes of proceedings. In theory, having a national oil company is a good idea in that it can coordinate otherwise disparate and sometimes counter-productive development initiatives by a range of state entities. […]