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Iraq Draft Petroleum Law: An Independent Perspective …

Tags: 17 february, aol, centralisation, crescent oil company, development history, economic feasibility, fertile crescent, independent perspective, introduction 1, introduction 2, iraq draft, maximum production rate, mbpd, oil field development, oil production, oil reserve, petroleum law, petroleum resource, resource base, saudi arabia,
Pages: 11
Language: english
Created: Tue Mar 6 12:23:13 2007
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Iraq Draft Petroleum Law: An Independent Perspective

                      Tariq Shafiq

             Director Petrolog & Associates
           Chair Fertile Crescent Oil Company
                   Tshafiq4@aol.com

                   17 February 2007




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Iraq Draft Petroleum Law: An Independent Perspective

Content

1.0 Introduction

2.0 The Draft Petroleum Law

3.0 The Negotiations

4.0 Concluding Remarks




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Iraq Draft Petroleum Law: An Independent Perspective

1.0 Introduction
1.1 Iraq may prove to have one of the greatest endowed petroleum resource
base in the world, with oil potential reserves in excess of 215 billion barrels
(mbpd) and proven reserves in the region of 115 billion barrels (bnb), which puts
it on par with Saudi Arabia. Moreover, its finding and development costs are low
­ amongst the lowest in the Middle East. However, its historical maximum
production rate in any one year has not exceeded 3.5mn barrel per day (mbpd),
although its exploration and development history has stretched almost for eight
decades. Iraq's oil production level historically has lagged behind its oil reserve
capability and has not reflected its low extraction costs.

Present Iraq proven reserves can support a production plateau of 10 million
barrels per day (mbpd) and maintain it for a decade. As such, priority should go
to rehabilitation and production capacity build-up and not to exploration for quite
a few years to come.

Planning oil field development for production capacity growth ought to be carried
out on a composite master plan, which examines the capacities of the discovered
and producing fields (including each producing formation within every field) from
a technical and economic feasibility point of view. In the mean time, it should take
into consideration Iraq's economic development plans and needs. This
necessitates a centralisation of policy and planning.

1.2 Finding cost per barrel of oil is estimated at: