Pessimism surrounds falling oil production in Iraq

[ozymandius]

BASRA — Iraq's oil production has fallen below prewar levels to its lowest point in a decade, depriving the country's fledgling government of badly needed income and preventing the United States from achieving one of its main reconstruction goals.

Iraq's oil wells — beset by equipment problems and saboteurs — are producing about 1.9 million barrels a day in net production, lower than the 2.6 million it was producing just before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, according to the London-based Centre for Global Energy Studies (CGES).

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A top priority

Production continues to slide despite a massive U.S.-funded effort to stabilize and boost output, repair critical parts of Iraq's oil infrastructure and develop a long-term plan for the Iraqi oil industry.

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More stumbling blocks

Outdated equipment hasn't been the sole obstacle in revamping Iraq's oil wells. Poor project management and bad pumping practices have also contributed, says Jamal Qureshi, a market analyst at Washington-based PFC Energy. One such worrisome practice is the way oil workers are re-injecting residual fuel oil into the northern wells of Kirkuk, Qureshi says. Workers have no place to store the oil as fast as it is being produced, so the excess oil is re-injected into the well for later pumping.

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[acmavm]

1. Who was it that said the war would pay for itself in revene from Iraqi

oil production. Was it that idiot who is now in charge of the World Bank?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. rummie wolfie and cheney all said it in public

but normally, they repeated it at fundraisers.
with oil execs.
construction companies.
parts suppliers.
and other companies poised to profit from an IRrAtional IRAqi Invasion.

[ozymandius]

4. Yep. That'd be Wolfowitz.

What a case against this man's credibility we could make if we could string together every comment he made before various Senate committees while selling this war. Whatever Wolfowitz says, one should believe the opposite.

[Missy M]

2. bush just keeps on making a bigger mess and it is time to hold...

him responsible. Not one positive thing has come out of bush's desire to have democracy in Iraq; oh wait a minute, aren't the Iraqi people better off now according to the rhetoric spewed out of his mouth. bush can't even get what he really wanted in Iraq, OIL.

[acmavm]

7. bush** never gave a rat's patoot if the Iraqis ever had a 'democratic'

form of government or not. It was all about the 'O'.

The oil, that is.

[EFerrari]

5. How incompetent do you have to be --

these bozos can't even get oil out of Iraq.

:rofl:

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

6. You know what else surrounds the falling oil production in Iraq?

A fuckload of craters from mortar attacks and exploding IEDs.