Oil Experts See Long-Term Risks to Iraq Reserves

[kskiska]

As the Bush administration spends hundreds of millions of dollars to repair the pipes and pumps above ground that carry Iraq's oil, it has not addressed serious problems with Iraq's underground oil reservoirs, which American and Iraqi experts say could severely limit the amount of oil those fields produce.

In northern Iraq, the large but aging Kirkuk field suffers from too much water seeping into its oil deposits, the experts say, and similar problems are evident in the sprawling oil fields in southern Iraq.

Experts familiar with the Iraqi oil industry have said years of poor management damaged the fields, and some warn that the current drive to rapidly return the fields to prewar capacity risks reducing their productivity in the long run.

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A 2000 United Nations report on the Kirkuk field said "the possibility of irreversible damage to the reservoir of this supergiant field is now imminent."

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American officials acknowledge the underground problems, but figuring out how to address them is a quandary for the United States. The Bush administration and the Iraqis are banking on oil revenues to help pay for Iraq's reconstruction, and American officials say aggressively managing the reservoirs is crucial to keeping oil and revenue flowing. But so far, American officials have steered clear of delving below ground, partly, they say, out of fear of adding to suspicion in the Arab world that the United States invaded Iraq to control its oil.

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http://nytimes.com/2003/11/30/international/middleeast/30OIL.html?hp

[madrchsod]

1. british assement

right after the war-50 billion plus to repair the fields.some estimates figure it may cost more to rebuid than what they can pump. nothing is going to happen untill big oil has contracts that are valid in the international courts. either the french,russians,germans and the chinesse get their cuts or the us will have to rebuild everything themselves. oh yes,this doesn`t include the weekly sabotage of the pipelines.