The vice president of the USA, Joe Biden, is currently in Iraq meeting with the country’s politicians to discuss various matters, not least the best way to develop the Gulf state’s huge hydrocarbon reserves.
An unnamed senior official told news agency AFP that Biden had urged Iraq to be more generous at the next round of auctions for development contacts for the country’s oilfields, due to be held in December.
ArabianOilandGas.com usually likes to stay out of politics, but we have to make an exception in this case.
What the hell was the senior unnamed source thinking of? Surely making something like that public is only going to make the Iraq Oil Ministry even more determined to squeeze the IOCs until the pips squeak come December.
It could well be that, privately, the Iraq Oil Ministry, led by the imperious Dr Hussain al-Shahristani, had come to the conclusion that the country could ill afford another disastrous oil auction where most IOCs walked away due to the harsh terms set by Baghdad. Maybe Shahristani et al were planning to be more flexible the second time around.
Now if they do it’s going to look like Iraq’s oil policy is being dictated by Washington and all it takes is a visit by Barack Obama’s right hand man to keep them in check.
Biden is a skilled and experienced politician so it will be interesting watching him weasel his way out of it by issuing an apology some sort of retraction.
And as for the unnamed senior official, the next time you’re talking to a reporter about such delicate matters tell him that the conversation is off the record. The IOCs may well thank you for it in December.
