May 28, 2000
A high-powered German industrial delegation met Sunday in Baghdad with Iraq's Oil Minister, General Amer Mohamed Rashid, to discuss a possible German role in Iraq's bid to become the world's number two oil exporter after Saudi Arabia.
The official Iraqi News Agency quoted Rashid as telling the Managing Director of the German Federation of Industry (BDI), Ludolf- Georg von Wartenberg, that there were "wide horizons for cooperation with German companies, especially concerning the supply of backup equipment for developing Iraq's petroleum industry" which is still suffering from the effects of the Gulf War.
The agency quoted von Wartenberg, who is heading the 78-member delegation, as saying that German industrialists were keen on revitalising their dealings with Iraq and "providing the requirements of Iraqi petroleum installations in spare parts and backup equipment".
Iraqi sources said that Iraq estimates it needs to spend 30 billion dollars to repair and upgrade its oil fields and export installations, in line with its declared aim of becoming the world's second largest oil exporter. Iraq has the world's second largest proven reserves of oil after the Saudis.
Despite the destruction suffered in the Gulf War and subsequent hostilities, Iraq managed to produce 2.54 million barrels of crude oil per day during 1999.
The authoritative Middle East Economic Survey (MEES) said last week that Baghdad plans to boost production to three million barrels daily in the second half of the present year, after having raised its production to 2.63 million barrels daily in April.
And Iraqi sources disclosed on the occasion of the German delegation's visit that the country's ambitious aim is eventually to reach six million barrels daily.
Iraq's bid to get the number two slot on the oil market was deflected by the 1980-1988 war with Iran, and dealt another shattering blow by the 1991 Gulf War and by the more devastating economic and trade sanctions imposed since then by the United Nations Security Council.
Even under the reduced form of the sanctions within the so-called oil-for-food programme, the United States has exercised a veto power - unjustly according to Iraq - on supply of badly needed spare parts for the Iraqi oil export industry.
But, driven by the backlash of the global oil price rise, the Security Council has set up a five-member panel which will start as of mid-June to review contracts for spare parts on a "fast-track" basis, bypassing entirely the Sanctions Committee where the U.S. sits.
The members of the committee are an oil expert from the Netherlands, an engineering expert from India and three customs agents from Canada, Russia and Switzerland.
The visiting Germans met on Saturday with Minister of Industry and Minerals Adnan Abdel Meguid who said, according to the Iraqi News Agency, that contacts were already in progress on the possibility of Germany undertaking the "number two line" in Iraq's petrochemicals complex.
Von Wartenberg has said that the size of the delegation should be a clear indication to Iraq about "the extent of the German government's and companies' interest in expanding industrial and trade links with Iraq".
He said that no specific projects were under study but that the delegation's members were interested in projects related to rebuilding the giant Gulf country's infrastructure, electricity and health care system.
German companies accounted for projects totalling only 55 million dollars since the oil-for-food programme started three years ago in a bid by the U.N. Security Council to reduce the toll of the sanctions on the Iraqi people.
