Iraq: Iraq Reviews Oil Revenue Sharing

Dec 18, 2014 | Anthony McAuley, The National
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BASRA: Iraq is in talks with its oil-producing governorates, including Basra, about a fairer distribution of revenue, said the oil minister, Adil Abdul-Mahdi. He made the remarks on Wednesday at a ceremony to mark the fifth anniversary of a deal with BP and PetroChina to reverse the steep decline in production at the Rumaila South oilfield, which is still estimated to contain at least 20 billion barrels of recoverable oil.

“We are working on that. We are in talks with the governorates about a fairer way to share” oil revenues, the minister said.

The head of BP in Iraq, Michael Townshend, estimated that the revenue the Baghdad government received from the field over the past five years had been about US$180 billion, of which $75bn was from oil that would not have been produced without the $5bn of investment in essential improvements to the field.