Iraq ramped up oil production to a 35-year high last month despite a worsening security situation and political standoffs in the country, but experts said more investment was needed if Iraq wants to realize ambitious output targets. CONTINUE READING

Iraq is emerging as one of the riskiest oil and gas jurisdictions to invest in, according to research house Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., a Wall Street investment management firm. CONTINUEREADING

L.C.Nøttaasen / Foter / CC BY

Hussain Al-Shahristani, Iraqi deputy prime minister for Energy Affairs’ recent comments on collaboration with Iran has stirred the hornet’s nest and may have made Saudi Arabia a bit uneasy. CONTINUE READING

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Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iraq will be among the world’s 30 largest economies by 2028, according to forecasts by a London-based economic consultancy. CONTINUE READING

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The recent spate of violence and an impending clash between prime minister Nour Al Maliki’s forces and Sunni rebels in Fallujah and wider Anbar provinces have threatened further instability in an-already violence-wracked country. CONTINUE READING

Asia Pacific’s net oil imports by 2035 are equivalent to the combined production of major OPEC producers such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and the UAE, according to the Asian Development Bank. CONTINUE READING

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The Iraqi oil sector has been one of the great success stories of the past five years, rising by a million barrels from 2008 to 2012 to cross three million barrels per day. CONTINUE READING

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Forecasts for rapid crude oil production from places as diverse as Iraq, Canada, Kazakhstan, the US and Brazil mean we should be swimming in oil at the moment. CONTINUE READING

Iraq needs to enhance its wealth management policies, especially as the flow of oil revenues is set to fill the government’s coffers over the coming years, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). CONTINUE READING

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Remove oil from the Iraqi economy and you have a country that has weak governance, major insecurity and instability, fractious regional governments, massive corruption and high unemployment and poverty rates. CONTINUE READING

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By Elza S. Maalouf, Founder & President Integral Insights Consulting, Member of the Evolutionary Leaders Organization

Corporations, like cultures, cannot skip a development stage. Life conditions in the Middle East have remained at tribal levels with egocentric overtones, which have resulted today in the sweeping revolutions of the Arab Spring. Corporate cultures in the Arab world were no exception to these values. Today visionary leaders, men and women, are changing these patterns and investing in human capacities that will outlast the Age of Oil.I have been working with Middle Eastern corporations for over a decade as a consultant and advisor to business founders and CEOs. Over the years, I have seen corporate training seminars delivered by Western consultants and trainers with the same exact content as it was delivered in the West as if the region were an extension of Anglo-Saxon values that just needed to catch up.

Even the best theories from management science fall short on achieving the intended results if they are not tailored to the memetic contours of each culture. In contrast to this one-model-fits-all approach, our consultancy honors all cultures, value systems and levels of development in society, and takes into consideration the environment and habitat in which they operate.

Specifically, the framework I use originated from the emerging science of memetics based on the seminal work of Professor Clare Graves and his successor and colleague Dr. Don Beck. A meme is like a gene that contains units of cultural information. Memes form into general groupings such as politics, language, economics, religion, education, health care, architecture, etc .The natural organizing principle that brings these groupings together is called a value-system or vMEME.
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Iraq continues to trundle along on the back of solid macroeconomics, but great political uncertainty remains. CONTINUE READING

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Elias Pirasteh / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

Iraq will emerge as the world’s fastest growing economy in 2012 and 2013, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML).

The Wall Street bank’s data shows that among all the major economies it tracks, Iraq will be the only country that will post double-digit-growth in 2012 - clocking a 10.5% improvement in GDP this year. CONTINUE READING

Although many new pockets of oil and gas reserves are bubbling all over the world, international oil companies consider Iraqi natural resources as one of the most prized assets. CONTINUE READING

Kurdistan Photo كوردستان / Foter / CC BY-SA

Total , Gazprom, Chevron and Exxon Mobil have all ignored Baghdad’s directive and signed deals with the Kurdistan Regional Government. What does it mean for Iraq’s energy sector? CONTINUE READING

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Kurdistan Photo كوردستان / Foter

Did Iraq overplay its hand in the failed fourth bid for oil and gas exploration with energy companies? CONTINUE READING

It should be a moment of pride for the Nour Al-Maliki government. Iraq’s oil production crossed three million barrels per day - the last time production was so high was in 1979, when 3.49 million barrels per day rolled out of the country’s oil wells just as President Saddam Hussain came to power. READ MORE HERE

Why did Exxon strike a deal with Kurdistan at the cost of upsetting Baghdad? Because Kurdistan offered up one of the greatest oil basins in the world, roughly half the size of Abu Dhabi. READ MORE HERE

Chatham House says OPEC may be heading for a Shia-Sunni split, but it appears to have discounted the group’s enduring powers and its resilience despite wars and severe disputes between member states. READ MORE HERE

Which regional companies and countries stand to lose in the event that Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz? Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s takes a look. READ MORE HERE

Iraq has disclosed detailed information about the US$ 41 billion in revenue it received from oil and gas exports in 2009. Iraq’s disclosure of the figures follows the country’s commitment to the EITI standard, the global standard for transparency of resource revenues. The revenues are published in Iraq’s first EITI Report, which detailed production figures and revenues from the sales of oil abroad in 2009.

Clare Short, Chair of the international EITI Board welcomed the report saying, “Through the launch of its first EITI report, Iraq has taken a significant step towards transparency in its all-important oil sector. With transparency of the payments for its oil and gas, Iraq’s citizens can see how much the government receives from the country’s vast natural resources and start to ensure that Iraq’s resource wealth is properly managed. Greater transparency will help Iraq overcome some of the many challenges it is facing”.
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The year 2011 has been extraordinary not just for the tectonic shift in the region’s political structures, but also the extraordinary pressures and opportunities faced by many regional economies.

With four dictators ousted - including one dead - many others were shaken to the core - the after shocks have reverberated throughout the region in 2011 and will no doubt be felt in 2012.

We identify 50 amazing statistics that highlight the remarkable year: READ MORE HERE

Iran may not be able to maintain its oil output by 2016 due to sustained international sanctions, but Iraq should be able to step into the breach, says the International Energy Agency.

Adding to the alarm bells surrounding Iran’s oil production, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says that there is a real danger that Tehran will not be able to maintain its oil output under the weight of international sanctions. READ MORE HERE

In the first part of the 2012 regional economic prospects, a look at oil-rich countries’ efforts to manage their citizens’ expectations, economic slowdown and regional and domestic political upheavals in the New Year.

The year 2011 was probably the most unexpected for the Middle East in decades with not just the magnitude of changes unravelling in the region, but also the sheer number of those cataclysmic changes. READ MORE HERE

Excerpt from Citibank report:

In October this year, $16.9bn of projects were awarded across MENA. On a cumulative basis, just over $82bn of projects have been awarded across the region in the year to end October. This compares favourably with FY10 when almost $80bn of projects were awarded. Saudi Arabia is the main driving force accounting for a third of the 2011 total. Iraq accounts for 20%.The UAE has awarded almost $14bn in the year to end October, almost $20bn below FY10.
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By Alon Ben-Meir

Due to a host of common denominators in the Arab world including the lack of traditional liberalism, the tribes’ power, the elites’ control of business, the hold on power by ethnic minorities, the military that cling to power, and the religious divide and Islamic extremism, the Arab Spring could sadly turn into a long and cruel winter. These factors are making the transformation into a more reformist governance, slow, filled with hurdles and punctuated with intense bloodshed. At the same time, each Arab country differs characteristically from one another on other dimensions including: history and culture, demographic composition, the role of the military, resources, and geostrategic situations. This combination of commonality and uniqueness has had, and will continue to have, significant impacts on how the uprising in each Arab country evolves and what kind of political order might eventually emerge.

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openDemocracy /Foter

By Alon Ben-Meir

In the wake of the Arab Spring and Prime Minister Erdogan’s championing of political reforms throughout the Arab world, it has now become more urgent than ever before to find an equitable solution to the Turkish-Kurdish conflict. Short of finding an immediate resolution to this debilitating struggle will not only severely compromise Turkey’s suggested model of successfully combining Islam and democracy, but it will additionally bankrupt its moral standing as it willfully continues to discriminate against 15 million Kurds who represent one-fifth of its population.
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By George Friedman

In a week when the European crisis continued building, the White House chose publicly to focus on announcements about the end of wars. The death of Moammar Gadhafi was said to mark the end of the war in Libya, and excitement about a new democratic Libya abounded. Regarding Iraq, the White House transformed the refusal of the Iraqi government to permit U.S. troops to remain into a decision by Washington instead of an Iraqi rebuff.
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Years after the removal of strongman Saddam Hussein, Iraq continues to struggle and show patchy progress. And while economic and political progress is wildly uneven, the cancer of corruption appears to be ever-present and is entrenching itself firmly in the political machinery of the country, undoing much of the painfully slow progress of the past few years. READ MORE HERE

Oil services and drilling in Iraq may only be currently a $600 million to $800 million market but there is a good likelihood that it could develop into a $6 to $8 billion market, according to Barclays Capital.

“We believe the run rate by year-end will be close to $1.5 billion. There are about 30 rigs drilling currently and NGP believes the rig count could ultimately surpass 300 rigs,” noted BarCap. “The scope of work being performed today is largely limited to workovers, with most drilling campaigns yet to commence. The future of the market lies in the integrated services model, in NGP’s opinion and ours. Service companies are not looked at with the same disdain as oil companies; however, there is an intense focus on cost controls due to cultural mindset.”

BarCap believes Iraq represents one of the largest multi-year growth stories for the oil services industry this decade. Companies that are able to execute and mitigate the political and security pitfalls in Iraq will be rewarded in our opinion.

(c) alifarabia.com

The Arab World’s tryst with democracy and freedom is unlikely to bear economic fruits, according to a study. Instead, we could well see a gridlock political environment and economic growth that continues to lag global averages.

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) insightful study on how the Arab Spring initiative is likely to play out, suggests a 60% probability of a gridlocked political environment that is unlikely to result in realizing the aspirations of the region’s citizens. READ MORE HERE

Jordan and Morocco’s possible inclusion in the Gulf is a political move rather than an economic one, but there might be other - unlikely - candidates in the region far suitable for the purpose.

The potential inclusion of Morocco and Jordan in the GCC fold should be taken for what it is - a political move by the Gulf states to widen their sphere of influence in the region. Read More Here

As Japan’s nuclear meltdown puts the brakes on yet another power source, the world is looking at ME energy to fill the gap. Luckily, there is plenty coming on line, despite the region’s shot-term problems. Read More

Erste Research Group’s excellent report on oil crunches some fascinating data on oil and its current short-term and long-term influence on the global economy. We picked ten charts to highlights some key findings from the report.
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Citibank believes Iraq can shrug off its current turmoil to emerge as one of the world’s fastest growing economies in the world over the next 40 years. Read More

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Find out which Middle East countries make it to Citibank’s list of the fastest growing economies in the world. Hint: it’s not Qatar. Read More