Parliament approves oil refineries investment law
Baghdad, 25 July 2007 (Voices of Iraq)The Iraqi parliament approved on Tuesday the draft oil refineries investment law during the session chaired by the first Deputy Speaker Khaled al-Attiyah.The law came within a string of draft laws presented to the parliament, which try to finish voting them before the summer recess.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called on the parliament last Saturday to cancel the recess or decrease it to vote the pending draft laws, including the draft oil and gas law, in addition to the possible ministerial reshuffle.
The Iraqi House of Representatives will go on a month-long-vacation as early as August.
The law, voted by the House of Representatives on Tuesday, aims at encouraging the private sector to take part in the industrial sector through granting Iraqi and foreign companies the right to establish oil refineries in Iraq with its own capital.
The companies, according to the law, have to appoint 75% of the workforce from the Iraqi people in the project.
The companies also will lay pipelines, while the Iraqi oil ministry will set up checkpoints to monitor and protect these pipelines.
According to the approved law, the companies have to make and submit reports on its work to the ministry.
They have also the right to lease lands to set up refineries.
Iraq sits on the world’s third-largest oil reserves and officials have sought, since last year, to finalize the draft law.
The law is vital for attracting foreign investment to Iraq, to boost its oil output and rebuild its economy.
The oil ministry will monitor the companies’ works through a committee, composed of representatives from a number of ministries, chaired by a senior official from the oil ministry.
______
Talabani supports Maliki’s efforts to develop Govt
Baghdad, 25 July 2007 (Al-Sabaah)The President Jalal Talabani renewed his support to Maliki’s Govt. and while he congratulated Turkish PM Rajab Ardogan on the occasion of his party’s winning of Parliamental elections, stressed on importance of activating the Parliament’s work to approve important laws.Statement of his office added that Talabani met Dr. Adnan Dulaimi, leader of Consensus front, and they discussed recent situation in the country politically and security.
_____
Iran ready for higher-level US Iraq talks
By Hiedeh Farmani
25 July 2007 (AFP)Iran on Wednesday said it was prepared to consider higher-level talks with the United States over Iraq, a day after their ambassadors to Baghdad held a landmark second meeting on Iraqi security.Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Tehran would be willing to consider talking to Washington, its arch-foe for almost three decades, at the level of deputy foreign minister.
“The talks between Iran and the United States over Iraq at the level of deputy foreign minister can be studied,” Mottaki said after a cabinet meeting, the state-run IRNA agency reported.
“If America makes an official request in this regard it can be examined,” he added.
US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and Tehran’s envoy Hassan Kazemi Qomi held a second round of talks on Tuesday in Baghdad over security in Iraq to follow up a first meeting on May 28.
The outcome of the meeting appeared to be very mixed with both sides still at loggerheads over who was to blame for the daily violence in Iraq.
The United States accused Iran at the meeting of stepping up its alleged support of militia groups and Crocker admitted afterwards the encounter had been marked by “heated exchanges”.
“We’ve got a lot of problems with the Iranians and, you know, face to face we’re not going to pull any punches,” he told Washington-based reporters in a conference call afterwards.
Iraqi officials hailed what they said was the creation of a tripartite security committee. However, US officials were more downbeat, saying Washington would “take a look” at the idea.
Mottaki did not say which diplomats could be involved in any higher-level talks.
Iran has several deputy foreign ministers, the highest ranking being Mehdi Mostafavi. The US deputy Secretary of State is former US ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte.
The first round of talks between Crocker and Kazemi Qomi were the highest-level public talks between the two sides in almost three decades. A meeting between deputy foreign ministers would be seen as a significant breakthrough.
Meanwhile, Iranian newspapers were divided over the results of Tuesday’s talks, with hardline daily Kayhan describing them as “fruitless” but others noting the creation of the security committee.
“The fruitless end to the second round of the three-way Baghdad talks,” said Kayhan’s headline. “The right words did not get into the ears of the occupiers.”
The conservative Jomhouri Eslami expressed bitterness over the continued US accusations of Iranian meddling in Iraq, speaking of the “American ambassador’s arrogant statement at the end of the second round of the Baghdad talks.”
However, the governmental Iran daily referred to “the agreement between Iran-US ambassadors at the experts meeting in Baghdad.”
The United States, a close ally of Tehran during the rule of the pro-US shah, broke off diplomatic relations with Iran in 1980 during the 444-day siege of its embassy in Tehran by students after the Islamic revolution.
Ties have remained frozen ever since with tensions now exacerbated further by the controversy over Iran’s nuclear programme and the jailing by Tehran of US-Iranian academics accused of harming national security.
The talks in Baghdad have stuck strictly to security in Iraq, with both sides ruling out the possibility of expanding the discussions to more contentious issues.
In an indication of the flourishing ties between Iran and Iraq following the fall of Saddam Hussein, an Iraqi government spokesman confirmed that his country had received an A-300 Airbus jet as a gift from Iran.
“The Iraqi government thanks the Iranian government for that gift,” Ali Dabbagh added, calling it a “goodwill initiative.”
_____
Iraqi government to aid local farmers
BAGHDAD, 25 July 2007 (Middle East Times)Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki Wednesday announced a new plan to provide subsidies for Iraqi farmers to protect them from “unjust competition” from other countries.”All farmers in Iraq have encountered extreme economic hardship when faced with unjust competition from growers of other countries that export their produce to Iraq at discounted prices,” a statement from his office said.
“In order for Iraqi farmers to compete in such uneven economic conditions, the Iraqi government has the responsibilities to protect them from unfair trade policies,” it added.
The initiative will provide subsidies for seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides and guarantee the “purchase of their produce of strategic crops at market price,” the statement said.
The statement did not say how much the government would be spending on the initiative, which will also include loans to farmers, rural irrigation projects, and the creation of a government agency to supervise the agricultural sector.
The new agency, to consist of agricultural experts, will “stabilize domestic prices and control foreign trade to ensure adequate food supplies and to stabilize domestic prices for several food commodities,” the statement said.
The agricultural sector in Iraq accounts for around 40 percent of the local economy, but has suffered from decades of war and economic sanctions.
_____
New Rumaila oil production station ~ Setting up meters in final stage
25 July 2007 (Iraq Directory)Director General of the South Oil Company said Tuesday that company cadres began operating a new oil production station in the Rumaila field south of Basrah, while director of the port of Basrah said that the oil metering system for exported oil entered its final stage.Jabbar Alaibi, director of South Oil Company in Basrah, said “operating a new oil production station Alsijeel Alaala, the prime area in the Rumaila field, began production Monday with an initial capacity of 15-18 thousand barrels a day. Work on the rehabilitation of the station continued for about 70 days, using local cadres and expertise strictly from the South Oil Company.”
He said when Alsijeel Alaala station starts working “it will help raise the export capacity of oil through Iraqi ports.”
The quantity of exported oil through Basrah ranged between 1.5 M and 1.8 M barrels a day, depending on the amount pumped from company sites.
The South Oil Company is one of the main divisions of the Iraqi National Oil Company, the first and base nucleus of direct national investment in the 1970s. By the end of the ’70s the maximum production from the southern oil fields reached 2.75 Mbbl/day and the plans were drawn up to raise capacity to 4 Mbbl a day.
After the events of 2003 the fields, 80-90% of installations and facilities of the company were damaged, according to the company, and the level of production did not exceed 150 thousand barrels a day. According to South Oil Company statistics, it has 12 working fields, 18 underground fields, 8 partially buried fields and 114 productive reservoirs.
For his part, director of the oil port of Basrah Ali Aboud Yaseen said, “The metering system for measuring exported oil through the port entered its final stage after the completion of work on podium B, where calibration and certification has been awarded by the global SGS, and will commence work at the end of this week.”
Ali Abboud Yassin: “With respect to the metering system for platform A, its calibration and certification will soon be completed, especially now that a group from Kalbiron Company arrived Wednesday for this work; the metering measurement system will be activated next August.”
Aboud added, “The reason for the delay in setting up the metering system in Basrah is “essentially due to the failures of the American company Kars Parson, which was supposed to set up the system, and its delay in providing meters.” The measurement process currently used in the port is “soundingâ€, which measures the loaded volume of oil tankers, a globally certified method.
The oil port of Basrah lies deep in Iraqi territorial waters at the top of the Arabian Gulf (135 km south west of Basrah) and it is certified for berthing and loading of oil tankers; the delay in initiating the export metering system and continuing measuring exported oil by sounding raised much ado in political circles and among Iraqi People. A source at the South Oil Company has expressed his belief early this year that the setting up of meters will continue for a few weeks.
The media director in the South Oil Company Salam Almkususi said last January, “Setting up the meters will occur first in the oil port of Basrah and then others will be set up in the Al-Umeiah port, and I do not think that this would take a long time … perhaps only a few weeks.”
_______
Kalimat appoints Huawei Technologies to deliver $1b Iraq national wireless network
25 July 2007 (Khaleej Times)Kalimat Telecom, winner of Iraq’s first national licence to provide a full-scale fixed wireless network, yesterday awarded a $275 million infrastructure contract to Huawei Technologies.The Kalimat-Huawei Memorandum of Understanding, signed this morning in the presence of Kalimat’s President and CEO, Wilson Varghese and Li Huang, Vice-President Huawei Tech. Investment Corp, is one of several Kalimat agreements formalised this week.
A $1 billion consortium of specialist vendors assembled by Kuwait-based Trade Links Middle East, Kalimat Telecom aims to enter every home, business, governmental and non-governmental institution in Iraq and deliver five million CDMA lines of service by 2011. The consortium won the 10-year wireless licence from Iraq’s Communications and Media Commission in September 2006.
Huawei, a global leader in telecom network solutions, will execute the project in four phases beginning in September 2007. The Chinese technology vendor will supply and provide deployment services for CDMA base stations and help create a top-of-the-line all-IP network infrastructure. _______
Transport ministry holds conference to develop ports, aquatic transport companies
Basra, 25 July 2007 (Voices of Iraq)A two-day conference specialized in the development of ports and aquatic transport companies in Basra ended on Tuesday, after it discussed the important role played by ports in the commercial movement, in addition to the joint operations between ports and the aquatic transport companies and the other governmental bodies, a source from the Transport Ministry said.”The conference tackled mapping out a strategy for the future of the ports and the aquatic transport within a comprehensive plan that tackle all problems facing the companies, in addition to finding means to work and cooperate with public and private se
…and learns he is the recipient of a brand new Jeep Patriot, donated by the New York-Tri- State Jeep Dealer’s Association! 
Operation Gratitude and Jeep congratulate SPC Sanchez on receiving this exciting gift and thank him, and all his comrades, for their courageous service to our nation.
