Oil Experts See Long-Term Risks to Iraq Reserves
By JEFF GERTH
Published: November 30, 2003
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 Iraqi's oil industry have said that years of poor management have damaged the fields, and some warn that the current drive to rapidly return the fields to prewar capacity runs the risk of reducing their productivity in the long run.
"We are losing a lot of oil," said Issam al-Chalabi, Iraq's former oil minister. He said it "is the consensus of all the petroleum engineers" involved in the Iraqi industry that maximizing oil production may be detrimental to the reservoirs.
more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/international/middleeast/30OIL.html?hpVery interesting article - read the rest... includes allusions to these revenues (from oil) are what are expected to pay for the longterm costs for rebuilding... makes the case for more investment in repairs (who does that... why Halliburton, of course!)
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