Recently in Iraq Category

(John Roberts was a guest lecturer on energy security at the NATO Partnership for Peace Symposium at Oberammergau earlier this month.)

When NATO looks at Iran it would seem reasonable to expect that it was looking at how the western world's warships are cramming into the Strait of Hormuz amidst charge and counter-charge that the strait faces the prospect of an Iranian blockade.

But when NATO invites its partners in the region -- countries such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, Jordan and Egypt are all members of NATO's Partnership for Peace program -- for an informal symposium on issues of mutual interest, it's not just energy security that's up for discussion, but cyber security, water and the problems posed by declining military budgets.

Todd Kozel, the Executive Chairman and CEO of Gulf Keystone Petroleum, says the Kurdistan focused independent is not for sale.

Don't believe a word of it. Every junior resources company is for sale at a price, especially those that are publicly traded, have not yet booked reserves and have no established revenue stream.

What constitutes having gas? If you want to build a pipeline, this is obviously one of the most crucial questions to ask. But it's not usually asked in quite that form.

The point is that it is worth considering what constitutes availability. In theory, of course, there's lots of gas that can be made available for a pipeline, as the rival stories of efforts to develop the South Stream and Southern Corridor pipelines to Europe show.

OPEC's 12 ministers will be raking in a few thousand air miles this month as they prepare to gather in Vienna on March 17 for their regular consultations  ahead of the second quarter before heading to the Mexican resort of Cancun for a major confab with major consuming nations and oil executives at the end of March.

It's a hard life for some.

The following article was written by Ben Lando, founder and bureau chief of Iraq Oil Report, a Baghdad-based information service, and contributing editor for Platts. His story is reproduced here with his consent.

Insurgent violence in Baghdad is not new for Iraqis. On the afternoon of January 25, three teams of suicide attackers staged coordinated, vehicle-born bombings of three popular capital hotels. By the morning of January 26, shattered glass was being swept from nearby storefronts and new window panes were being installed.

The Iraqi resolve is born of constant siege. On the morning of January 26, as lives torn apart the day before were being stitched back together, an investigations directorate of the Ministry of Interior was bombed, killing at least 17. Any investor in Iraq has to expect such instability -- both seemingly random and utterly predictable.