Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani led a delegation to London to meet with pre-selected oil companies approved to bid on nearly 38 percent of Iraq's 115 billion barrels of oil. Two gas fields are also up for grabs.

Some critics, however, said the ministry should have delivered more details, as promised, both to be commercially viable and to follow through on pledges of transparency.

Others raised concerns the first return of international oil companies since nationalization three decades ago will lead to the control Big Oil had on Iraq from discovery of oil there in the 1920s.

The oil minister of Iraq's Kurdish region also panned the deals.

Shahristani is moving forward nonetheless in his goal of increasing Iraq production to 4.5 million barrels per day within five years and 6 million bpd within 10 years. Iraq produced 2.29 million bpd last month, according to the global energy firm Platts, a drop from the 2.5 million bpd post-war peak during the summer.

The contract model itself was not made public as the ministry had previously said, but it appears to be a hybrid between the more politically safe service contracts and an industry-preferred deal that carries some risk and reward.

The company or consortium of companies will own a 49-percent stake in a field's 20-year development program, with the respective state oil firm carrying the remaining stake. The ministry aims to finalize deals by the end of June 2009. Until then more details will be released, including the requirement of Iraqi participation and control of the operation.

A news conference held Monday followed closed-door meetings between tight-lipped ministry and company officials. Many spoke to United Press International on condition of anonymity.

"It was quite a professional presentation and description of the licensing round," said an official of one of the companies attending the meeting. The official said there "will be more questions" for the ministry as the process unfolds.

The ministry has hired British consultants Gaffney, Cline and Associates as advisers. Gaffney, Cline will be responsible, among its tasks, for selling companies data packages for the fields. The exact cost is not clear, but UPI understands a bundle for all eight oil and gas fields is $2.5 million.

The 49-51 ratio determines financial investment required, and possibly participation for each side, though details have yet to be released, let alone resolved. An executive said the Iraqi oil firms will be "equal partners in operation" of the project. It's not known if the once prominent domestic oil industry will be rebuilt as part of these deals. Sanctions, war and mismanagement have hurt Iraq's oil sector since 1980, and violence and sectarianism have led to Iraqi oil experts being forced out, fleeing the country or being killed.

Companies will pay a $10 million signing bonus and taxes and fees on production, UPI understands, but the per barrel compensation will depend on the oil field increasing production, and the extent untouched oil in the deal territory is pumped and new oil found. The gas fields are untouched and how they will be handled also is undisclosed.

Iraq will apparently press companies to begin work soon after signing the deals, and the ministry promises to be strict on allowing work stoppages, such as during a flare-up in violence.

Another bidding round could begin this process by the end of the year, which would put 82 percent up for foreign investment.

"If contracts are signed whilst Iraq is occupied, whilst conflict rages and whilst its institutions are divided, what chance is there of getting a good deal?" said Greg Muttitt, co-director of the British organization Platform, which works with Iraqi oil workers attempting to limit foreign investment. "But Iraqis would have to live with this deal for decades. The tragedy is that when the occupation finally ends, Iraqis may find their economy and natural resources are no longer their own."

Platform staged a protest Saturday outside the London offices of Shell and BP, which join with ExxonMobil, Chevron, Marathon, Total and 29 other companies readying to bid. Many were directly or through their predecessors involved in the old Iraq oil monopoly.

Ashti Hawrami, the natural resources minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, said, "The federal Oil Ministry on their own have no legal powers or legal mandate to negotiate and sign contracts."

The KRG has signed two dozen production-sharing contracts with international oil firms since 2005 aimed at exploring and producing oil in the northern Iraq region. He said the new Iraq Constitution, which calls for a new oil law to be written, forbids the national Oil Ministry from signing deals without approval of the Parliament.

"Since the Oil Ministry is still insisting to act alone and ignore the regional and the provincial authorities, and without the approval of the fed Parliament," Hawrami told UPI a few days before the London meeting, "we firmly believe that all their contractual decisions lack a legal base, hence not binding."

Shahristani has called the KRG deals illegal, and the production-sharing contracts are criticized for giving too much to the companies. He also says the Council of Ministers, not the Parliament, will be required for final approval.

The new oil law and three related laws have been stalled as two fights simultaneously have been waged: one over the extent the national government should decide the oil development strategy vs. the provincial and regional governments. The other is to what extent foreign companies should be allowed to invest, which has led to confrontations between workers and the government.

(e-mail: [email protected])

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