 |
| Oil boom: Iraqi employees attended a March 15 ceremony opening a Najaf refinery. Oil production is expected to top 3 million
barrels per day in 2008. Qassem Zein/AFP/Getty Images |
Basra strike against Shiite militias also about oil
Iraq's oil minister says the assault helped curb oil smuggling.
from the April 9, 2008 edition
Page 2 of 3
The potential income from Iraq's vast oil is only beginning to be realized. Already, more than 90 percent of the revenues of this year's budget of $48 billion will come from oil exports. And just three months into the year, the government is reaping a $5.4 billion windfall on top of this from rising oil prices that are now hovering above $100 per barrel.
US lawmakers estimate that Iraqi oil revenues for 2007 to 2008 will total $100 billion. Iraq now produces an average of 2.5 million b.p.d., the bulk of it in Basra. Of that amount, an average 1.6 million b.p.d. is exported via the southern province and only 0.3 million b.p.d. via the northern pipeline, according to Shahristani.
To be sure, many question the government's power and will to stop oil theft and smuggling since the botched operation in Basra. The government would also have to convince average Iraqis that its crackdown on smuggling is being done for their benefit – and that of the economy as a whole – and not to serve the agenda of ruling Shiite political parties.
Shahristani says responsibilities for protecting oil facilities and guarding against smuggling and theft in Basra shifted at the start of the year from the Oil Ministry's Oil Protection Force (OPF), which has been abolished, to a newly created unit of the Interior Ministry known as the Oil Police. The Interior Ministry is widely viewed as being dominated by Mr. Maliki's Shiite allies.
The OPF in Basra was under the sway of the Fadhila Party of Gov. Muhammad Mosabeh al-Waeli. Shahristani says tribesmen loyal to the government are being actively recruited now into the Oil Police.
The governor's brother, Ismail al-Waeli, was believed to be Basra's No. 1 smuggler, says Shahristani. "He has fled outside Iraq … his name was among the gangs involved in oil smuggling, in fact he was at the top of the list."
The word in Basra is that Governor Waeli is under some sort of house arrest and that his brother Ismail has fled to Kuwait. The head of the local provincial council, Muhammad Sadoun al-Abadi, who belongs to a branch of Maliki's Dawa Party, is now running day-to-day affairs in close coordination with Maliki, according to a Basra-based scholar familiar with the situation.
Shahristani says among those arrested so far are Yussif al-Mussawi, the head of a small party in Basra called Thaar Allah (God's Revenge), because of his involvement in "kidnapping, extortion, and several smuggling rackets including oil."
The Basra-based scholar, who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons, says that while government forces control Basra's center and several other areas, the Mahdi Army remains largely intact in its traditional strongholds – poor working-class areas of the city.
RSS feed
