sances.info

In the recent deals, the major oil companies have agreed to accept service contracts, in which they earn a fee for each barrel of oil produced. Yet they vastly prefer production-sharing agreements, in which they gain an equity stake in the oil itself. Such deals are far more lucrative to oil companies, but for Iraqis they are reminiscent of the colonial era, when foreign companies controlled the country’s oil wealth. “We have shown that we can attract international companies to invest in Iraq and boost production through service contracts,” Hussain al-Shahristani, Iraq’s oil minister, said recently. “They will not have a share of Iraqi oil, and our country will have total control over production.”