Bondlady’s Corner

Iraq Economic News and Points to Ponder Saturday Afternoon  9-23-23

Tlm724 Administrator Bondlady’s Corner

Economist For /NINA/: The Oil And Gas Law Will Contribute To Distributing The Financial Returns Of Iraqi Oil Wealth

Saturday 23, September 2023 09:49 | Economical Number of readings: 477  Baghdad / NINA / Economic affairs expert, Raad Tawij, called for avoiding the legislation of the oil and gas law and not delving into it, attributing this to the fact that oil is an indivisible, strategic commodity.

Twig said in a statement to the National Iraqi News Agency ( NINA ): “It is best for Iraq to avoid the oil and gas law and not engage in it because it harms the whole of Iraq,” attributing this to: “Oil is an indivisible, strategic commodity, and the oil and gas law can lead to dispersion.” The value of oil wealth.

He pointed out that “several parties are involved in managing the oil wealth, which will contribute to the fragmentation of the financial returns of the oil wealth and a significant shortfall in oil revenues and revenues, which will be difficult to compensate for. The evidence of this is the inability to formulate a law that satisfies everyone, which has continued for many years.”

The economic expert continued, “This law may be a reason for illegal monetary demands from Iraq to local and international parties, such as Turkish financial demands from Iraq, taking advantage of its illegal contracts with the Kurdistan region.”  https://ninanews.com/Website/News/Details?key=1079316

Economic Specialist: Al-Sudani Gave Confidence In Iraq’s Investment Climate And His Dialogues At The United Nations Are Important..

Saturday 23, September 2023 11:38 | Economical Number of readings: 465  Baghdad / NINA / The specialist in economic affairs, Durgham Muhammad Ali, confirmed: “The Prime Minister’s meetings and dialogues on the sidelines of the United Nations meetings are important if they are followed up and implemented.”

Muhammad Ali said in a statement to the National Iraqi News Agency ( NINA ): “The Sudanese gave confidence in Iraq’s investment climate and made important calls to invest in upcoming strategic projects with a brief explanation of their importance, calling for the formation of committees to follow up on all bilateral understandings and talks to transform the oral agreements into a field reality through… Bilateral agreements and incentives to enter the Iraqi market.”

Muhammad Ali stressed, “The necessity of forming a higher investment council supervised by the Prime Minister to simplify investment procedures and encourage investors to enter the Iraqi market and remove the obstacles facing their work.”

Prime Minister Muhammad Shiaa Al-Sudani visited New York to participate in the meetings of the United Nations General Assembly at its seventy-eighth session, and held discussions with heads of state and government and senior officials from various countries of the world, in addition to holding media dialogues./End    https://ninanews.com/Website/News/Details?key=1079329

“Oil Price” Salutes Iraq’s Global Ambitions In The Petrochemical Sector

Reports  Economy News  A specialized American website touched on the enormous oil and gas resources available in Iraq and the extent of this country’s ability to become a global producer of high-value petrochemicals, indicating that it will benefit greatly from the huge revenues from these value-added products.

In a report published by the American “Oil Price” website, writer Simon Watankins said that there had been plans to do this several years ago, especially the “Nebras Project” for petrochemical industries. According to comments from the Iraqi Oil Ministry, talks took place last week to approve the “final concept” of this long-awaited station, and “emphasize the need to accelerate plans to implement this project.”

In January 2015, Shell signed the original deal to build the then $11 billion nuclear power plant in the southern oil hub of Basra, after signing the original memorandum of understanding in 2012.

At that time, there were high hopes on both sides for the future of the “Nebras” project, as the then Minister of Industry, Nasser Al-Issawi, said in a press conference that the nuclear power plant would enter into operation within 5 or 6 years and would make his country the largest producer of petrochemicals in the region.

Monetary compensation

For Shell, this gave it the opportunity to launch its initial operations in the Majnoon field and the West Qurna 1 field and transform it into a leading refining station in the field of manufacturing industries.

These reserves of oil and associated gas have been provided to add to the potential raw materials that will come from Shell’s 44% stake in the Basra Gas Company project, which is worth $17 billion and was launched 25 years ago. The Basra Gas Project is designed to collect gas from fields in the south, including West Qurna 1, Zubair and Rumaila.

According to the writer, Nebras’s design plans were for a project that could produce at least 1.8 million metric tons annually of various petrochemicals. This would make it the first and largest petrochemical project in Iraq since the early 1990s and one of only 4 such major complexes in the entire country. The other areas – Khor Al-Zubair in the south, Al-Musayyab near Baghdad, and the Baiji refinery complex in the north – were all managed by the Iraqi General Company for Petrochemical Industries.

However, since the launch of the Nebras project, problems have become clear for Shell, as has happened with many foreign oil and gas companies that have operated in Iraq. According to the independent organization Transparency International, in its “Corruption Perceptions Index” publications, Iraq is always ranked among the 10 worst countries out of 180 countries in terms of the extent and scope of corruption.

In fact, Shell was unlucky enough to sign the original memorandum of understanding for the Nebras project during the period in which Iraq lost about $14.4 billion in “cash compensation” payments, according to a statement made in 2015 by the Minister of Oil and the Prime Minister of Iraq. Later, Adel Abdul Mahdi.

Petrochemical products

This “cash compensation” includes what can be classified as bribery and corruption payments that ended up either in the hands of Iraqi officials, brokers of various exploration and development deals, or others involved in these deals. Also during this period, ExxonMobil began to face the same type of problems in its highly important joint seawater supply project.

The report confirmed that there is still a truly tremendous opportunity in the “Nebras” project that Iraq can exploit. As explained exclusively to Oil Price in 2018 by a prominent figure in one of the Russian companies that was looking to acquire the Nebras project, Shell has done a really good job so far with the Basra Gas Company, but the country needs to implement its plans. To develop a second gas center away from Basra.

The Russian source said, “This will lead to the volume of gas production reaching an average of one billion standard cubic feet per day, so that ethane can be extracted on a sustainable and reliable basis, which will provide sufficient volume for a large petrochemical plant to be viable.”

By 2019/2020, the Basra Gas Company reached the peak production rate at more than this required level (1.035 billion standard cubic feet per day), which is the highest rate in the history of Iraq.

The report concluded with what the source said that the global ethylene production facility – one of the most in-demand petrochemical products in the world, especially from China – ranges between 1 and 1.5 million tons of ethylene production, and one million tons annually, and the ethylene facility will require a supply of about 1.3 million tons annually of ethane. .

There must be a sustainable and reliable supply for at least 20 to 25 years, and in general, building all the necessary parts of an effective global petrochemical sector in Iraq will require about $40 to $50 billion.”  Source: Oil Price  158 views 09/23/2023 – https://economy-news.net/content.php?id=36556

More Than One Billion Dollars In Sales From The Central Bank Of Iraq During The Past Week

Economy News  The Central Bank of Iraq’s total sales of hard currency during the past week amounted to more than one billion US dollars.

According to the dollar sales tables published on the Central Bank’s website, $1,010,484,084 was sold during the past week and for the five days in which the auction opened, an increase of 3% over last week, in which sales amounted to $197,677,718.

The highest dollar sales were on Monday, when they amounted to more than $219 million, while the lowest sales were on Wednesday, when they amounted to more than $197 million.

Foreign remittance sales during the past week amounted to more than $951 million, an increase of 83.91% compared to cash sales, which amounted to more than $153 million.

It is noteworthy that the sales went in the form of cash and transfers abroad to finance foreign trade, while the selling price of the amounts of documentary credits and international settlements for electronic cards reached 1,305 dinars per dollar, while the selling price of the amounts of transfers abroad and the cash selling price reached 1,310 dinars per dollar.

Views 66 09/23/2023 – https://economy-news.net/content.php?id=36558

Advisor To The Prime Minister: The Path To Development Sparked Strategic Economic Programs In Iraq

Reconstruction and building   Economy News   The financial advisor to the Prime Minister, Mazhar Muhammad Saleh, confirmed today, Saturday, that the government’s vision is based on the sustainability of financing investment projects away from oil.

Saleh told the Iraqi News Agency (INA), followed by Al-Iqtisad News: “The draft economic reform law, the draft of which the Council of Ministers had previously discussed in the past months, represents the government’s vision that was formulated by the ministerial platform, which is based on the principle of partnership between the state and the private sector, in a way that achieves a major shift in financing.

Investment projects, with high financing sustainability, in which the private sector contributes with their income and financial surpluses, away from the restrictions imposed by fluctuations in the oil asset cycle and dependence on the unilaterality of the oil resource in financing development.”

He added, “The Economic Reform Law serves as the philosophical foundation for the Iraq Fund for Development, and it is one of the important executive arms of the Economic Reform Law and represents the essence of the partnership between the state economy and the market economy,”

pointing out that “the national strategy for developing the private sector that was previously approved and its importance in raising the contribution of market activity In the gross domestic product, it will reach more than 50% of the gross domestic product within a decade instead of its current situation, in which the private sector still contributes less than 37% to the formation of that national product.

Saleh explained that “economic diversification and abandoning the unilateralism of the rentier economy require a reform law in which the leadership of the productive national market is integrated into the process of economic construction of Iraq, side by side with the role of the state in development and with effective partnerships required by the future economic advancement in Iraq, which was sparked by Iraq’s strategic economic programme, which is path of development.

Views 87 09/23/2023 – https://economy-news.net/content.php?id=36559

The Dollar Exchange Rate Continues To Rise In Iraq

Economy | 11:42 – 09/23/2023  Baghdad – Mawazine News  The exchange rate of the dollar continued to rise against the dinar in local markets.  The selling price was $100, compared to 156 thousand dinars.  While the purchase price was recorded at 100 dollars compared to 153 thousand. Ended 29/h

https://www.mawazin.net/Details.aspx?jimare=235394

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Points to Ponder From KAHLIL GIBRAN:

If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember.

They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.

Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.