Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Media: The Associated Press
Byline: By WILLIAM J. KOLE
Date: 11 September 2006
VIENNA, Austria_Iraq will bolster its military presence in the oil-rich
north of the country, where saboteurs and insurgents repeatedly have
targeted workers, pipelines and facilities, the Iraqi oil minister said
Monday.
"We already have a military presence there and we're going to reinforce it,"
Hussain al-Shahristani told reporters at a meeting of the Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Countries.
"We have engaged Iraqi defense forces to protect these pipelines, and we
hope to be able to use those pipelines which have been down for quite a few
months now," he said.
Iraq's northern oil fields produced an estimated 8.5 million barrels of
crude in July, former Iraqi oil minister Ibrahim Mohammad Bahr Al Olom said
last week. But repeated attacks on oil workers and infrastructure have made
it difficult for the country to lift production back to prewar levels of
about 2.5 million to 3 million barrels a day.
On Monday, gunmen in two cars ambushed a bus carrying oil employees in
northern Iraq, killing four and injuring another, police said.
The bus had been taking the employees from Beiji, the country's biggest
refinery, 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of Baghdad, to Tuz Khormato
district, some 120 kilometers (75 miles) southeast of Beiji, on Sunday
night, police Capt. Khalid Sabah said.
Iraq now is pumping between 2.3 million and 2.4 million barrels a day "and
we're going to increase it," al-Shahristani said.
He told reporters that Iraq hopes to increase production to between 4
million and 4.5 million barrels a day, though he conceded it would take
US$20 billion (?15.8 billion) in infrastructure investment to achieve that.
"Everyone agrees that the oil sector needs a huge investment and should be
the locomotive of the economy," he said, but added that "soft" loans could
be a solution so Iraq's budget isn't overly tapped.
The nation is excluded from OPEC's production quota of 28 million barrels a
day.
Al-Shahristani said Iraqi authorities also have launched a campaign against
smugglers who steal from gas stations and peddle the fuel on the black
market.
Byline: By WILLIAM J. KOLE
Date: 11 September 2006
VIENNA, Austria_Iraq will bolster its military presence in the oil-rich
north of the country, where saboteurs and insurgents repeatedly have
targeted workers, pipelines and facilities, the Iraqi oil minister said
Monday.
"We already have a military presence there and we're going to reinforce it,"
Hussain al-Shahristani told reporters at a meeting of the Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Countries.
"We have engaged Iraqi defense forces to protect these pipelines, and we
hope to be able to use those pipelines which have been down for quite a few
months now," he said.
Iraq's northern oil fields produced an estimated 8.5 million barrels of
crude in July, former Iraqi oil minister Ibrahim Mohammad Bahr Al Olom said
last week. But repeated attacks on oil workers and infrastructure have made
it difficult for the country to lift production back to prewar levels of
about 2.5 million to 3 million barrels a day.
On Monday, gunmen in two cars ambushed a bus carrying oil employees in
northern Iraq, killing four and injuring another, police said.
The bus had been taking the employees from Beiji, the country's biggest
refinery, 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of Baghdad, to Tuz Khormato
district, some 120 kilometers (75 miles) southeast of Beiji, on Sunday
night, police Capt. Khalid Sabah said.
Iraq now is pumping between 2.3 million and 2.4 million barrels a day "and
we're going to increase it," al-Shahristani said.
He told reporters that Iraq hopes to increase production to between 4
million and 4.5 million barrels a day, though he conceded it would take
US$20 billion (?15.8 billion) in infrastructure investment to achieve that.
"Everyone agrees that the oil sector needs a huge investment and should be
the locomotive of the economy," he said, but added that "soft" loans could
be a solution so Iraq's budget isn't overly tapped.
The nation is excluded from OPEC's production quota of 28 million barrels a
day.
Al-Shahristani said Iraqi authorities also have launched a campaign against
smugglers who steal from gas stations and peddle the fuel on the black
market.