[WCUSP] Fw: [uslaw-InformationService] Iraq draws up plans for privatisation gold rush; Iran, Venezuela to establish joint oil company

Wed Jul 4 06:39:29 CDT 2007

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Subject: [uslaw-InformationService] Iraq draws up plans for privatisation gold rush; Iran, Venezuela to establish joint oil company

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Iraq draws up plans for privatisation gold rush

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/07/01/cniraq101.xml

By Helen Power, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 2:07am BST 04/07/2007

The Iraqi government has begun preparing the groundwork for what could be one of the biggest privatisations of state-owned assets.

The Sunday Telegraph has learned that officials from the government have recently held talks with banking and legal advisers in London. City sources said Iraq's minister for industry, Fawzi Hariri, was looking to appoint advisers to draw up a memorandum of understanding to sell off the country's non-oil assets, ranging from petrochemical plants to construction companies, hotels and airlines, as early as this month.

Quds electricity plant: Iraq's reconstruction will be a building bonanza

The privatisation proposals could also include a massive extension of foreign participation in the oil industry. Sources close to the foreign ministry said the government believed it had struck a deal on the long-awaited hydrocarbon law which could see Parliament vote the legislation through in two weeks' time. If the legislation is passed, arrangements to allow foreign oil majors to enter into production-sharing agreements with Iraq's national oil company could then make it into the memorandum.

An executive at one of the smaller Western oil companies operating in Iraq said: "As you would expect, most of Iraq's non-oil assets are outdated and in pretty bad shape. But this would give people who wanted to operate in Iraq an opportunity to get in." The source added that Iraq's nationalised cement industry could be particularly attractive because the country's reconstruction will require a building bonanza.

However, sources cautioned that the move could simply be a sop to the American administration. The US Congress will consider a report on progress in Iraq in September and a privatisation programme could be presented as some kind of progress in lieu of any real improvement in the security situation. City sources said any instruction would be complicated by factionalism within Iraq's fragmented government. Hariri, while not ethnically Kurdish, is a member of the Kurdish democratic party.

Experts said investor appetite for Iraqi assets was relatively limited and was likely to remain so until the country's security improved considerably. But if attempts to privatise Iraq's non-oil assets went hand in hand with moves to open up the country's oil sector to foreign investment, they would have much greater appeal. The long-awaited passage of the hydrocarbon law is seen as critical to attracting foreign investment.

Smaller, maverick oil companies have already invested in Kurdish-controlled areas of Iraq, but the bulk of the oil is in the south and no oil major would consider investing without a reliable legal regime and a significant improvement in security. 

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7/3/07 
Iran, Venezuela to establish joint oil company 

Tehran, July 2, IRNA - Visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Monday that Iran and Venezuela have agreed to establish a joint oil company. 

The Venezuelan president said in a joint press conference with his Iranian counterpart on Monday in Assalouyeh of Khuzestan province that the two countries have also agreed to establish an international import and export company. 

Chavez said that he was impressed by the remarkable and large economic projects underway in Assalouyeh. 

"Venezuelan officials are determined to create petrochemical industries in their country. Construction of various enterprises would enable us to put an end to the monopoly of the superpowers," he said. 

Iran, Venezuela ink 3 contracts
Assalouyeh, Khuzestan prov, July 2, IRNA - Iran and Venezuela here Monday signed three contracts at the end of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's visit to Iran. 

Iran's Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh and his Venezuelan counterpart inked a contract on cooperation in the field of energy and hydrocarbons. 

The petrochemical cooperation is the subject of another contract signed by managing managing directors of National Iranian Petrochemical Company (NIPC) and that of Venezuela in presence of the two presidents. 

The two presidents also inked a joint communique. 

Ahmadinejad and Chavez also took part in a joint press conference in South Pars Special Economic Zone elaborating on the achievements of the Venezuelan president's visit to Iran. 

Iran to build 7,000 houses in Venezuela
TEHRAN, July 2 (Mehr News Agency) - Tehran and Caracas inked a document that necessitates the private sector to build 7,000 residential units in Venezuela, said the industries and mines minister here on Monday. 

Attending the 4th Iran-Venezuela Joint Economic Commission meeting, Alireza Tahmasbi and Venezuelan Minister of Basic Industries and Mining Jose Khan signed 11 documents. 

Tehran and Caracas had already signed 181 documents and agreements, added Tahmasbi. 

He added that the documents had been inked for oil, petrochemical, energy, housing, banking, heavy industries, mines and geology, economic, political, cultural, agricultural, fishery, transportation, and health sectors. 

Khan said his visit to Tehran would strengthen strategic talks and strike a balance in economic, political, social and cultural ties between the two countries. 

... Payvand News - 7/3/07 ... 

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