War shattered Iraq has revived the contract with China to develop an Iraqi oil field, which was signed by late Saddam Hussein.
To develop the al-Ahdab oil field, Iraq has signed a contract with China National Petroleum Corporation in 1997. The total value of the deal was about $1.2billion with the capacity of 90,000 barrels a day.
Under U.S domination, Iraq has shown there reluctance to regularize the contracts issued by Saddam, but the growing military attack and bloodshed is thwarting new investment in the country. Amid the fear of galloping security concern, the tone of Iraqi government toward Saddam-era contracts has dramatically changed as country’s oil minister Mr al-Shahristani shows his keenness to revise the pending contracts.
Mr al-Shahristani said:
The contract with the previous administration is still valid - it was signed and we will honor it, we have been talking since I visited China eight months ago and the Chinese have just submitted a revised proposal to meet the new technical requirements for oil field development laid out by the Iraqi government
To accelerate the pace of investment in the country, nation’s oil minister welcomed Chinese oil company to bid for other contracts too.
The breakthrough on the deal was made during the visit of Iraqi president Jalal Talabani to China last month. The field is one of the first to be offered to foreign investors since the 2003 US-led invasion; however, US diplomats in Beijing have shown their ignorance about the deal.
Image: Chinadaily
Via: Financial Times
