While many global oil executives preach optimism to investors and the general public, Issam A.R. Al-Chalabi, the former Iraqi oil minister, has a different message. "Iraq offers nothing but misery and mystery," he said at the recent Cambridge Energy Research Associates conference in Houston. "It is estimated to contain 115 billion barrels of reserves, maybe more. But the Western Desert has never been explored, not even one horizontal well has been drilled, and 3-D seismic has never been shot." The political nature of oil has kept Iraq from realizing its full potential as an oil-producing country, he said, and he doesn't expect the oil industry's situation in Iraq to change any time soon. For more on this, see the March issue of Oil and Gas Investor. For a subscription, call 713-260-6441.
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