New projects are announced with investors of doubtful credibility Once upon a time in 2010, the then Iraqi Minister of Oil Hussain Shahristani — otherwise known as the “Teacher”, from recent exposes — was invited to the parliament to speak about the petroleum product shortages in the country. The refineries were not meeting domestic demand due to a 70 per cent utilisat
Read More
A Mysterious Pipeline Closure Is Bankrupting Iraqi Kurds Iaqi Kurds’ dreams of energy-financed political independence are taking a beating — and not just because of low oil prices. Since the middle of February, Iraqi Kurdistan’s tenuous export link to the outside world has been totally shut down. As recently as January, the Kurds were exporting 600,000 barrels a day in
Read More
Introduction and executive summary 4 Base case Primary energy 9 Fuel by fuel detail 19 Key issues What drives energy demand? 44 • The changing outlook for carbon emissions 48 • What have we learned about US shale? 52 • China’s changing energy needs 58 Main changes Key uncertainties 71 • Slower global GDP growth 74 • Faster transition to a lower - carbon world 78 • Shale oil and
Read More
Its latest industry forecast reckons oil touching $95 a barrel in real terms by 2040 The annual Opec’s World Oil Outlook (WOO) report has just been issued and gives pointers to the prospects for the energy industry in general and the oil market in particular up to the year 2040 as seen by researchers of the Secretariat. Since the previous report which was issued in November 20
Read More
Download PDF Dr Ali Merza’s excellent paper on the “The First Round of Licencing in Iraq: Economic Evaluation” ** has tempted me to write this short article as complementary knowledge to bring about the bigger picture to decision makers when fully evaluating the the next round of the Oil contracts. Although economic evaluation is critical to the decision making process, it do
Read More