Category: Iraq

Iraqi Oil Minister Adil Abdulmahdi (third from left) and KRG Minister of Natural Resources Ashti Hawrami (second from right) on a panel with U.S. diplomats and oil industry leaders at the Atlantic Council’s Energy and Economic Summit on Nov. 20, 2014. (Source: Adil Abdulmahdi) Iraqi leaders are implementing a temporary oil export deal, sparking unusually conciliatory dialogue and rare optimism among the country’s top oil policymakers.Iraqi Oil Minister Adil Abdulmahdi and Ashti Hawrami, the minister of natural resources of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), made a joint appearance Thursday at the Atlantic Council Summit in Istanbul, expressing willingness to find solutions to the country’s decade-long disputes over oil."Oil since the founda… This content is for registered users. Please login to continue. If you are not a registered user, you may purchase a subscription or sign up for a free trial .

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Security forces stand guard outside the Erbil governorate building on Nov. 19, 2014, after a vehicle-borne bomb exploded at a nearby checkpoint. (DANIEL W. SMITH/Iraq Oil Report/Metrography) Iraq Oil Report Recommend 627 people recommend this. Sign Up to see what your friends recommend. A vehicle detonated in downtown Erbil on Wednesday, killing at least four people and injuring at least 29 – the first such attack to hit Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region in more than a year.Eyewitnesses to Wednesday’s attack said a Mercedes Benz pulled up to a checkpoint in front of the Erbil governorate building, near the ancient citadel at the center of the city, where the car was halted by guards. The bomb went off at 11:55 a.m.The attack could cause the Kurdistan Regional Governmen… This content is for registered users. Please login to continue. If you are not a registered user, you may purchase a subscription […]

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Iraq ’s biggest oil refinery at Baiji is set to reopen after government troops forced Islamic State militants further from the facility. Iraqi troops will expel the militants from areas near a pipeline supplying the plant 130 miles (209 kilometers) north of Baghdad , Colonel Khalaf al-Jabouri, a member of Iraq’s anti-terror forces, said by phone. It will take about three months to restart the plant because workers have fled to other provinces and refinery units need maintenance, according to Saad al-Azzawi, an engineer at Baiji. “We will secure the pipeline network that feeds oil to the refinery,” al-Jabouri said. “The Iraqi forces are now seeking to clear the path where the pipelines pass through to pump the oil to Baiji and also to export the crude to Turkey .” The Baiji plant has been at the center of repeated attacks since June as Islamic State militants attempted to […]

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Gas flares burn at the Northern Kirkuk Oil in northern Iraq on January 06, 2010. (MARWAN IBRAHIM/AFP/Getty Images) Iraq’s Oil Ministry is beginning new contract talks with BP to develop the Kirkuk oil field – a potential flashpoint for political conflict now that Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region has integrated much of the field into its own, separate oil sector.Representatives from the British super-major held meetings with Iraqi officials in Baghdad on Monday, according to Oil Ministry Spokesman Assem Jihad."The Oil Ministry’s relations with BP regarding Kirkuk are continuing," Jihad said. "Th… This content is for registered users. Please login to continue. If you are not a registered user, you may purchase a subscription or sign up for a free trial .

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BAGHDAD (AP) — A Kurdish official in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil says a suicide car bomber has struck in the heart of the city, inflicting an unknown number of casualties. Wednesday’s bombing in Irbil, capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, took place near the historic citadel. Mayor Nawzad Hadi told the state-run Rudaw TV channel that the number of casualties was not immediately known. Hadi says the suicide bomber tried to enter the citadel but failed, so he detonated his car outside the gates. The mayor says there is significant damage to the property in the area. Irbil is close to the front-lines. Islamic State militants advanced within 30 kilometers of the Irbil last summer, but were eventually repelled by Kurdish forces with the help of U.S. airstrikes.

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Oil Minister Adil Abdulmahdi tours the besieged Baiji refinery on Sept. 11, 2014, a day after formally taking office. (Source: Office of Adil Abdulmahdi) Recommend 197 people recommend this. Sign Up to see what your friends recommend. Government security forces and militia fighters have broken the five-month siege on Iraq’s largest oil refinery, after a week-long campaign to retake the northern Iraqi town of Baiji from militants led by the so-called Islamic State (IS) group.Yet the refinery will not be usable for at least several months, according to refinery personnel and officials from Iraq’s state-run North Oil Company (NOC). Not only has the facility sustained damage that needs to be fully assessed, but key pipeline i… This content is for registered users. Please login to continue. If you are not a registered user, you may purchase a subscription or sign up for a free trial .

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BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi security forces entered the country’s largest refinery for the first time on Tuesday after months of battling Islamic State militants who had surrounded it, a police colonel and state television said. If confirmed, the recovery of the facility could provide critical momentum for government forces charged with restoring stability in a country facing its worst security crisis since dictator Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003. "The first Iraqi force, the anti-terrorism force called Mosul Battalion, entered Baiji refinery for the first time in five months," police colonel Saleh Jaber, of the Baiji refinery protection force, told Reuters. State television flashed news of the advance and broadcast what it said was live footage of the complex from outside its walls. No security forces were visible. "In this area, terrorists were stationed to the left and right. If God is willing, Baiji will be the main key […]

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ISIS 7x Bigger Than West Believes The Islamic State (Isis) has recruited an army hundreds of thousands strong, far larger than previous estimates by the CIA, according to a senior Kurdish leader. He said the ability of Isis to attack on many widely separated fronts in Iraq and Syria at the same time shows that the number of militant fighters is at least 200,000, seven or eight times bigger than foreign in intelligence estimates of up to 31,500 men. Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff of the Kurdish President Massoud Barzani said in an exclusive interview with The Independent on Sunday that “I am talking about hundreds of thousands of fighters because they are able to mobilise Arab young men in the territory they have taken.” He estimates that Isis rules a third of Iraq and a third of Syria with a population of between 10 and 12 million […]

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BAGHDAD (AP) — A pair of car bombs targeted busy commercial areas in the Iraqi capital on Monday, killing at least 14 people and wounding 31, officials said. In the first attack, a car detonated on a commercial street in the Meshtal neighborhood in eastern Baghdad, killing at least eight people and wounding 15, police officials said. The second car bombing took place in Baghdad’s western Amiriya district, also hitting a commercial street and killing at least six people and wounding 16 there. Hospital officials confirmed the casualties. All spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to media. The Iraqi capital is seeing near-daily attacks but nothing compared to the rampage in northern and western Iraq by the Islamic State group. Recent bombings have frequently targeted Shiite-majority areas in Baghdad, but the violence has been considerably subdued from the darkest days of sectarian […]

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WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 (UPI) — It’s unclear how well non-military means in Iraq and Syria will diminish the revenue base for the Islamic State, a scholar from RAND Corp. testified. Members of the House Committee on Financial Services heard testimony on oil revenue for the Sunni-led terrorism group in control over parts of Iraq and Syria. At the height of its campaign , IS controlled as many as seven oil fields and was said to be generating as much as $2 million per day in oil revenue. David S. Cohen, undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at the Department of the Treasury, testified the group is "probably now earning several million dollars per week" from smuggled oil. Patrick Johnson , a counter-terrorism specialist at RAND Corp., testified it was difficult to understand the full complexity of the IS smuggling ring in the region. "Although some information exists on the […]

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