Paper progress only in Iraq

Oil Ministry claims around key IOC investments ignore its lame duck status

All looks rosy in the Iraqi oil garden. The first major contract off the back of TotalEnergies’ planned $27bn investment in the country’s energy sector was signed in mid-July. Ever-bullish oil minister Ihsan Ismail declared in June that necessary approvals had been received for a state firm to buy ExxonMobil out from a key oilfield, potentially enabling some of Baghdad’s record crude export revenues to be ploughed into its slow-moving expansion. But flat production and sales—combined with, and in no small part caused by, prolonged political paralysis—paint a far bleaker picture. After a Paris meeting with the major’s CEO, Patrick Pouyanne, Ismail announced that a design contract had been ink