Minister Ashahristani officially stated: "I met with representatives of big oil companies during the meeting of OPEC in Vienna and they were ready to negotiate with us about developing our oil fields before the legislation of the gas and oil law is finished. However, the minister did not name these companies. He added that the Iraqi Oil Ministry is currently responsible for running the Iraqi Oil sector and will bound itself to one type of contracts only. This, clearly points out to the dispute over the production process and the sharing agreements. Ashahristani did not comment on what kind of contracts the Ministry will sign with these companies.
Ashahristani added: "there will be many forms of contracts specified to develop our oil fields. The Iraqi oil sector will need about 20 billion USD of investments so that it will be able to double its oil production up to 4.5 million barrel a day during the next five year." He also mentioned: "The current production of oil in Iraq is ranging between 2.3 and 2.4 million barrel a day. But, Iraq is still facing many difficulties like: the need to exhort more efforts to raise up the production rate to their pre-war levels, the deteriorating security status, bad and old technology bad weather and insufficient logistic support."
Officials in the Iraqi oil sector says that many oil fields have been discovered in the south, center, north of Iraq and they are ready to be developed. According to Asahristani, the Energy Committee in the Iraqi Government is writing down the final draft of the gas and oil law which is expected to be passed on to the Parliament before end of the current year. Ashahristani added that his new law will found a new Iraqi national oil company supervising the activities of the oil sector. According to the new law of gas and oil, the Iraqi Ministry of Oil will supervise the planning for the oil sector and design the oil policies instead of carrying out numerous oil operations which will be done by the new Iraqi National Oil Company. The establishing of the new Company was already suggested two years ago by the ex-minister of Iraqi Oil, Thamir Al-Ghadhban. The previous Iraqi National Oil Company was converted to a ministry run by the ex-dictator Saddam Husain in 1987. The role of the new Company will concentrate on: determining the important decisions and policies, strategic planning for the Iraqi Oil industry as well as dealing with international relations and oil investments which include production, exportation and excavation.(Source)Iraq National Congress
