“It is a vital objective to ensure maximum local economic benefit and job creation,” Majid H. Jafar, Crescent Petroleum CEO, said while addressing the fifth annual Iraq Petroleum Conference.
The conference is being held with support of Upstream Principle Sponsor Crescent Petroleum, the Middle East’s longest established private petroleum company, is currently underway in London.
The challenge, he said, is to maximize the revenues of Iraq’s massive energy reserves and potential”
The conference is focused on the next phase of developing Iraq’s oil and gas resources as well as the current and future upstream opportunities.
In his presentation, titled Iraq’s Petroleum Potential: Policy Challenges Ahead, the Crescent Petroleum CEO stated that, on a global scale, and even with conservative estimates for oil demand growth, the world will need the equivalent of a new Saudi Arabia every 5 to 7 years, and that Iraq is perhaps the last untapped source of high potential and low cost oil on earth.
“Looking forward, the challenge for us is to maximize the revenues of Iraq’s massive energy reserves and potential, while responsibly deploying them in order to develop a diversified economy and wider prosperity for the Iraqi people,” he said.
“Iraqis maintain a strong sense of nationalism and self-reliance in oil matters, partly due to the decades of conflict and sanctions which left its oil sector isolated,” he explained, and quoted Article 112 of Iraq’s Constitution, which requires that the federal government, with the producing regional and governorate governments, “shall together formulate the necessary strategic policies to develop the oil and gas wealth in a way that achieves the highest benefit to the Iraqi people using the most advanced techniques of market principles and encouraging investment.”
Jafar was joined during the session – under chairman Thamir Ghadhban, Chairman of the Advisory Commission to the PM of Iraq – by Haider Al Abadi, Chairman of the Treasury Committee, Iraqi Parliament; Kenneth Fairfax, Minister Counsellor for Economic Affairs, American Embassy Baghdad; and Hans Nijkamp, Shell Vice President and Country Chairman Iraq.
The Iraq Petroleum Conference, which brings together government and industry experts and serves as a forum to explore Iraq’s resource and business potential, kicked off at The Landmark Hotel with international oil and gas companies from 70 countries, as well as key Iraqi oil and gas industry experts, in attendance.