Is the story of ‘massive untapped oil reserves’ fact or fictions?

 

By Sharif Ali

 

Azzaman, May 29, 2007

 

The restive Province of Anbar grabbed the headlines of world media recently. But the news, fortunately, was not related to the ongoing violence and ferocious resistance of U.S. occupation the province has been reputed for in the past four years.

 

Suddenly, world media focused their attention on significant oil reserves of 100 billion barrels. And where? In the western desert and specifically in Ramadi Province.

 

The reports ostensibly left no doubt that the province sits on gigantic oil fields which, if exploited, would place Iraq ahead of Saudi Arabia as he world’s top oil producer.

 

The reports were based on a study by energy analysts I.H.S.

 

The figures took Iraqi oil experts and analysts by surprise and they have their own reasons to be suspicious of the estimates and the timing of their announcement.

 

The Province of Anbar is Iraq’s largest, occupying 31.1 percent of Iraq’s area of 434,934 square kilometers.

 

The province, the scourge of U.S. invasion troops, is inhabited by 1.3 million people and more than 95 percent of its land is barren desert.

 

Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) carried out seismic surveys of the province and dug numerous oil wells between 1955 and 1061.

 

The National oil Company made its own surveys which continued for over two decades and only came to a halt after the imposition of punitive U.N. trade sanctions in 1990.

 

During the same period major oil firms like ExxonMobil, Japex (Japan Petroleum Exploration), Ascom, Petronas and Repsol made extensive surveys through joint agreements signed with the Ministry of Oil.

 

The reports of all these surveys, which are part of the Oil Ministry’s archives, were discouraging and could not come up with categorical results that the western desert, that is the area falling within the provincial borders of Anbar, holds substantial oil or gas reserves.

 

That conclusion was substantiated by an article in MEES, the authoritative Middle East Economic Survey, in a report about the results of 2004 surveys by American geological groups which said the area’s oil reserves run between half a billion and one billion and a half of proven reserves.

 

Brushing all these findings aside, the U.S. energy analysts I.H.S., for reasons yet to be uncovered, reveals surprising and shocking figures of estimates totaling 100 billion barrels.

 

Who are we to believe? Is it logical and sane to doubt the surveys by IPC, the National Oil Company, giant foreign oil firms and recent surveys by U.S. groups and believe the I.H.S?

 

I.H.S. report smacks of politicization. It was written and made public with the aim of pacifying the violent and restive province by telling its rebellious population it is better for them to lay down their arms and make use of their oil riches under the new oil law and federal system.

 

But the powers that inspired the I.H.S. report forget that one major reason for the Iraqis frustration and disillusionment is the oil law in its current form and the federal system.

 

Whatever oil is there in Iraq belongs to Iraqis as a nation the fruits of which will have to be reaped by the country at large and not its federated provinces.

 

Note: The writer is an expert in Iraqi oil reserves and served as a director-general at the Oil Ministry.