SocalDinar

If they can make profits you can bet they will. Thanks Yota

Iraq business news has some good articles sometimes but they also posted the April fools day joke on the rv

Powerful Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr arrived in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region on Thursday in what his spokesman said was a bid to resolve a crisis between the region and Baghdad. Sadr arrived at Arbil airport on a private plane from Tehran, and was met by the region's president Massud Barzani and other Kurdistan officials, an AFP reporter said. "It is a historic visit, and it will lead to the expansion and strengthening of the relationship between Kurdistan and all Iraq," Fuad Hussein, the head of the office of the presidency in Kurdistan, told journalists at the airport. "It will also lead to more stability in the political situation in the country," he said. Sadr, who spends most of his time on religious studies in Iran, "will meet Barzani today, and there is a significant possibility that he will go to Najaf after finishing his meetings in Kurdistan," a source in Sadr's office in Najaf told AFP. Sadr's spokesman Salah al-Obeidi had earlier told a news conference in Baghdad that the cleric had accepted an invitation to visit Kurdistan, saying that "the crisis needs such a move to resolve the situation." He added that "the sayyid (Sadr) is trying to put Al-Ahrar (his parliamentary bloc) and himself personally in the middle." "One of the goals of the visit is to solve the crisis," Obeidi said. Tensions remain high between Kurdistan and Baghdad, especially between Barzani and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Barzani said on April 22 that he opposes the sale of F-16 warplanes to Iraq while Maliki is premier, as as he fears they would be used against Kurdistan. Barzani had previously accused Maliki of moving toward dictatorship, and said the premier aimed to "kill the democratic process" after the head of Iraq's electoral commission was arrested for alleged corruption. Earlier this month, Kurdistan stopped oil exports over more than $1.5 billion (1.13 billion euros) it said is owed to foreign oil companies working in the region, that Baghdad has allegedly withheld. The central government's top two oil officials responded by saying Arbil owed Baghdad more than $5 billion in promised exports, and was smuggling the oil it produced to Iran. http://uk.news.yahoo.com/iraqs-sadr-makes-historic-kurdistan-visit-130715703.html

By Associated Press 6:48 a.m. EDT, April 26, 2012 GENEVA (AP) — A United Nations panel has approved another $1 billion in compensation for victims of Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The U.N. Compensation Commission said in a statement that the money will go to four companies and two government, or international, bodies. It did not disclose their identities Thursday, but said all are in Kuwait. The commission has so far paid out $36.4 billion for governments and international organizations to distribute among 1.5 million claimants. A further $16 billion is earmarked for unidentified claimants in Kuwait. Until the U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq, the commission received 25 percent of the proceeds of Iraq's oil sales to compensate for losses and damage suffered by Iraq's 1990 invasion. After the invasion of Iraq, that cut was reduced to 5 percent. http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-eu-un-iraq-compensation,0,4147717.story

Iraq inks $363 mln power deal with Egypt's Orascom -electricity min Thu Apr 26, 2012 10:44am GMT April 26 (Reuters) - Iraq's electricity ministry signed a $363 million power deal with Egypt's Orascom Construction to build a 1,014 megawatt gas power plant in northern Iraq, it said on Thursday. The contract involves building a plant in Baiji, 180 km (112 miles) north of Baghdad, to install six gas units, each with a capacity of 169 MW, which Iraq bought from Siemens in 2008 http://af.reuters.com/article/egyptNews/idAFL6E8FQ6IK20120426?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=egyptNews&rpc=401

Thursday, 26 April 2012 Abdul Rahman Nayef al-Obeidi, a 22-year-old Iraqi farmer, fell in love with two women, but instead of choosing between them, he married both in one night in a small village in central Iraq. The wedding ceremony for Obeidi and two of his cousins, Intidhar, 17, and Suad, 22, was held on April 6 at his family home in Al-Laqlaq village, north of Tikrit. The ceremony was attended by the families of his two brides, relatives and friends, who were happy and surprised. Obeidi, the youngest of five sons, said that he informed his parents about his plan to marry his two cousins in one night and they encouraged him, though many of his relatives were against the idea. “It took me less than one month to make a final decision because the two families are my relatives and I love the two girls,” Obeidi said. The most important step was to persuade the two young women. Intidhar said: “He told me, ‘We will marry, me, you and Suad, in one night, so what do you say?’ And I told him it is all right, if you treat us both the same way.” Islam permits men to marry up to four women, but stipulates that the wives must be treated equally. Suad said she was surprised when Obeidi told her about his idea, but he persuaded her to go along. Obeidi’s older brother Salman played the role of mediator in the negotiations with the two families, and succeeded in making his brother’s dream come true. Iraqi farmer marries two women in one night His father, Nayef Hamid said he feels proud of his son, although he is the only of the five sons to marry two women. Hamid said that he is ready to support all his sons if they decide to marry twice. Obeidi’s mother, Rasmiya Mohammed too said she supported her son and did not want him to feel sad because he loves the two women. Commentary on a picture of the married trio posted on Facebook was mixed, with men generally supporting the idea, and women against it. “This man is a hero. There is no one who has done that before him, and this man should be put in Guinness Book of World Records,” Ali Bassi Abbar wrote. But Sara Yasser disagreed, writing sarcastically: “Poor guy; he did not want to break one of their hearts. He is really a nice man.” Another woman, Sara Saad, criticized the two new brides, writing that, “Any woman who agrees to such a marriage does not have any sense or dignity.” http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/04/26/210442.html

Iraqi license plate dealers cashing in on auto sales boom Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2012/04/26/iraqi-license-plate-dealers-cashing-in-on-auto-sales-boom/#ixzz1t9rgnKld'>http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2012/04/26/iraqi-license-plate-dealers-cashing-in-on-auto-sales-boom/#ixzz1t9rgnKld BAGHDAD – By the time Ibrahim Khaled Mohammed turned to a car dealer looking for an offer, his 1983 Volkswagen Passat could barely move. But here in the Iraqi capital, the bald tires, balky engine and three decades of wear weren't much of a problem. What the buyer really wanted was the old white license plate, a commodity far more valuable than the rusting clunker itself. The dealer paid Mohammed $3,800, counted out in U.S. hundred-dollar bills. "Without the plate, it wouldn't have been worth more than $500," Mohammed said. Demand for new cars is soaring in Iraq as salaries rise and the level of violence creeps lower. That is good news for automakers such as General Motors Co. and Kia Motors Corp., which are reporting a big jump in sales here. The boom is proving lucrative too for dealers of recycled license plates, who profit from a quintessentially Iraqi conundrum: In many cases, the government will not issue new plates on vehicles bought from private dealerships. As a result, many new car buyers pay middlemen for plates salvaged from old vehicles. That can add thousands of dollars to the price of a new car — effectively imposing a tax on first-time buyers that ends up in the hands of savvy businessmen rather than government coffers. "Go to a car dealer, and they'll say: Do you want it with a plate or without?" said Ibrahim Jamil, a businessman who occasionally deals in cars. "If you have the money, you can find a plate." Prices for popular Baghdad tags have skyrocketed past $4000, up from just a few hundred dollars in 2005, according to Jamil and others in the trade. Those looking for plates often turn to extended family or friends, and even knock on the doors of strangers with a broken-down jalopy parked outside, hoping they'd be willing to sell the tags. Because Iraqi plates include the name of the province, those from ethically and religiously mixed regions like the capital are more valuable than ones from areas where one sect predominates. The cheapest plates, dealers say, come from Anbar, Diyala and Salahuddin — provinces where Iraq's minority Sunnis are concentrated. "If you're a Shiite living in a Shiite neighborhood, you won't buy a plate from Ramadi," the capital of Anbar, said plate dealer Khaled Diwan. "You'd be too afraid." He estimates he makes $500 on each plate he sells. For around $4,500, he can find you a plate and take care of the paperwork of changing the plate's registration to the new car owner. The real value, though, is getting enough plates to have ready-installed on the new Hyundais and Kias he sells out of a friend's dealership. "A car with a plate already on it (is) much easier to sell," he said. A surge in new car sales is driving up demand. General Motors says it sold 32,000 vehicles in Iraq last year. That is up from 19,000 in 2010 and fewer than 1,500 just five years ago. Iraq recently became GM's second biggest regional market after Saudi Arabia, said John Stadwick, the company's Mideast president and managing director. Business is so good that GM is building a fancy new showroom that Stadwick predicts "will probably be the nicest building in Baghdad" when it opens later this year. Ford and Chrysler are reporting gains too. So are European and Asian automakers. South Korea's Kia sold more than 9,000 vehicles in the first three months of this year, up 47 percent over the same period a year ago, according to spokesman Michael Choo. But the plates problem is a brake slowing sales, say those in the industry. "Especially for small cars," said Mohammed Khadr, the sales and marketing manager for GM's distributor. "A guy who's buying a $10,000 vehicle still has to pay $5000 for the plate. ... That's a 50 percent increase." Hassan al-Kaabi, the Baghdad-based sales manager for Volkswagen and Audi, said he has an employee who specializes in finding plates for customers. "The buyer doesn't have the time, so we do it for them. It's just another service we provide," he said during an interview in a new reinforced glass showroom in Baghdad's bustling Karrada neighborhood. The service doesn't come free, though. "Of course they complain about the prices," he said. The government does issue new plates in some cases. One is if you buy a new car from the state-run dealer or through infrequent government auctions. But many customers bypass the government offerings because the selection and add-on options are limited, and it can take months before popular models become available. New plates are also available under a government program aimed at getting the large number of aging clunkers off the road — the legacy of a flood of used cars that poured into Iraq following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Those cars received black temporary plates issued amid the chaos after Saddam Hussein's fall. So owners of a temporary-plated car above a certain age can bring it to a state junkyard and walk away with a new, white plate to put on a new car — though after paying what might add up to hefty back fees. Brig. Najim Abdul-Jaber, spokesman for the Traffic Police Directorate, defends the limits on new plates as a way to limit congestion and remove aging vehicles. He has little sympathy for Iraqis who complain the unregulated plate market drives up prices. "The people who buy new cars don't care. They're happy to pay that much to show off their new cars," he said. Khadr, from the GM distributor, argues that the number of old cars has thinned, and it's time for a straightforward registration system "like anywhere in the world." "More people would be willing to buy new cars if you didn't have this system," agreed Diwan, the Hyundai and Kia salesman. "It makes things difficult." Read: General Motors takes sales crown...in Iraq? http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2012/04/26/iraqi-license-plate-dealers-cashing-in-on-auto-sales-boom/ Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2012/04/26/iraqi-license-plate-dealers-cashing-in-on-auto-sales-boom/#ixzz1t9r8wJym

So you think it's our governments job to protect us from this? Government has a role but not here! It is not their job to protect us from ourselves period! I'm sure some lame official will sponsor a bill regarding this in the future. Not sure how anyone anywhere ever survived to become an adult before our leaders came to protect us Examples 1 We sat in the back of trucks 2. We did nof have or use seatbelts (airbags either ) 3. We ate doughnuts Cooked with the wrong oil 4 We rode our bicycles without helmets 5. We drank beer at 18 6. We went hiking without permits 7. We ate medium rare hamburgers 8. We were left at home alone or in the car 9. We used those unsafe gas pumps ( that actually worked) 10 We went swimming in pools deeper than 3 ft Feel free to add to this list

So they are not stopping the auctions All rumors ?? Seems to me that the border crossings need to step up the inspections to stop the currency smuggling Thanks for the article

So since the increased value of the dollar to the dinar is causing inflation in Iraq. Many say the if the dinar increases to the dollar it will cause inflation. Which one is it?

Peak Oil is wrong THE OIL RESERVE FALLACY Proven reserves are not a measure of future supply Ever since the world's first commercial oil wells opened in the US and Russia in the 1850s, the question of future oil supply has been controversial. Today many people take for granted that oil production has peaked and that no substantial new amounts of oil are even possible to develop. These pages present a contrary view based on the idea that oil reserve figures have not been presented honestly by the US and European oil industry. This is not to say that oil won't run out some day, but rather that the usually uncounted reserves are far larger than are generally known. To begin with, one of the most revealing speeches about world oil reserves went unremarked in 2006. The head of the world's largest oil company, Saudi Aramco, said: “We are looking at more than four and a half trillion barrels of potentially recoverable oil. That number translates into 140 years of oil at current rates of consumption, or to put it anther way, the world has only consumed about 18 percent of its conventional oil potential. That fact alone should discredit the argument that peak oil is imminent and put our minds at ease concerning future petrol supplies.” "The Impact of Upstream Technological Advances on Future Oil Supply" - Mr. Abdallah S. Jum'ah, President & Chief Executive Officer, Saudi Aramco, address to OPEC, Vienna, Austria, Sept. 13, 2006. What does it mean? Why does this view of world reserves conflict so dramatically with the oil industry's view? Probably most important for world oil policy, the Middle East does not have two thirds of all world oil reserves, as has long been claimed by the Saudis, the oil companies and the US Dept. of Energy. It only has two thirds of "proven" oil reserves which are far smaller than the potential reserves Jum'ah describes. The "traditional" view (British Petroleum). Here is the conventional view of proven world oil reserves, 2002, British Petroleum. Here is a more geologically accurate picture of world oil reserves that adds US Geological Survey figures for recoverable and unconventional oil reserves. These charts are different due to a legacy of flawed information about oil reserves. Consider these typical items from the news: That more than 60 per cent of the world's proved oil reserves are in the Middle East, a region wracked by conflict, is a constant source of anxiety for nations that rely on Gulf supplies. In spite of stated efforts to reduce its reliance on Middle East oil, the US has been driven to repeated interventions and support for autocratic regimes to ensure stable energy supplies. -- Financial Times, July 5, 2006, p. 8. If you were to spin the globe and look for real estate critical to building an American Empire, your first stop would have to be the Persian Gulf. The desert sands of this region hold two of every three barrels of oil in the world -- Iraq's reserves alone are equal, by some estimates, to those of Russia, the United States, China and Mexico combined. -- Robert Dreyfuss, Mother Jones. March-April 2003 The magic number is 112 billion. That's how many barrels of oil experts say is oozing through Iraq's geology -- the second largest proven reserves of oil on the planet, just behind Saudi Arabias. -- New York Times -- Nov. 3, 2002 In the Gulf lie two-thirds of the world's oil reserves -- Financial Times (London) -- Dec. 4, 2002 None of the above statements are correct. To begin with, the Middle East does not have two thirds of the world's oil reserves. The oil reserve estimates cited above all refer to a narrow category of "proven" oil reserves, not to "every ... barrel of oil in the world" as Mother Jones magazine would have it. Left, right and center, everyone who has written about global energy supply has focused on the problem through a single optic. According to a US Geological Survey report quietly published in 2000, there is more oil outside the Middle East than inside the region. Certainly two thirds is not at all accurate -- It's 54 percent of identified reserves, possibly 40 percent of ultimately recoverable reserves, and possibly 30 percent or less if you include unconventional heavy oil fields. As Standard Oil executive Wallace http://iqd.me/l/11 said in 1944, it is a "fallacy ... [to] cite proved reserves as a measure of available future supplies." Yet this is exactly what has animated US policy in the Middle East. The news media nearly always use the proven reserve figures and omit other categories because the Department of Energy and the oil industry publish reports that include only "proven" oil reserves -- as if that is all there is. Most people do not realize that other petroleum geologists -- most notably those at the USGS -- take a different view. The current war in Iraq may or may not be "for" oil, but there is no question that at some level, it is "about" oil. What if Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the Middle East are NOT the home of the world's largest oil reserves? What if decades of American foreign policy are based on a faulty premise? The implications cut deeply in many directions, but these will be left for the reader. The point here is to question the premise and get facts on the table. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The chart on the next page compares the US Department of Energy's World Crude Oil and Natural Gas Reserves (created by the oil industry) and the US Geological Survey's World Petroleum Assessment and Analysis (created by USGS). The two approaches are very different. DOE and the oil industry have relied on narrow estimates of proven reserves which are the basis of our foreign policy. USGS relies on a more scientific but virtually unknown estimate. If we rely more on the USGS than the oil industry, it is plain that: * The Middle East does not have two thirds of the world's oil -- it has 54 percent of identified reserves, or, if you look at ultimately recoverable reserves, 39 percent. * Kuwait -- not Iraq -- has the second largest identified oil reserves in the world with 99.4 billion barrels, compared to 96.5 for Iraq, according to USGS. * Saudi Arabia may have one quarter of the world's identified oil reserves, as the oil industry claims, but it has only about 16 percent of all ultimately recoverable reserves, according to the USGS. In the report that accompanies the reserve estimates, USGS did not include "unconventional" oil such as Venezuelan heavy crudes. However, the agency did say that these unconventional sources "are approximately equal to the Identified Reserves of conventional crude oil accredited to the Middle East." In other words, according to the USGS, and employing a conservative estimate for unconventional oil, the Middle East probably has anywhere from 29 to 35 percent of ultimately recoverable world oil reserves -- not two thirds, as is commonly claimed by the oil industry. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What has happened is that "proven" reserves, which reflect the economics of petroleum development, have been the dominant underlying premise in reserve information. Other geologically valid categories of oil reserves have been ignored. By definition, a proven reserve is one that can be developed economically. But many oil reserves fall somewhat below a standard index of affordability and are therefore not counted. In addition, there are political issues. Most proven reserves estimates are kept in synch with Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) estimates, and OPEC production quotas have long been tied to proven reserves. As a result, known oil producing areas are not explored, reserves are not reported, and reported reserves are discounted for commercial and political reasons. Of course, proven reserves are the appropriate index for oil investment (and in some circumstances it may be required under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles). A reserve that is economically extractable is the only kind a private investor would want. Proven reserves are a burden if you live in a developing nation with undeveloped oil resources. However, if you happen to be a citizen of a nation caught up in the life and death geopolitics of the Middle East, a broader perspective of the geological picture of world oil reserves would, at the very least, be of some interest. The net effect of the exclusive emphasis on proven reserves is to make people believe that the worlds oil future is -- and must always be -- centered in the Middle East. Nothing could be further from the truth. Some petroleum economists, aware of the fallacy, make this analogy. Let's say a company is taking inventory of its stock in order to pay its fair share of taxes. And let's say that the company decides to count only the stock on its shelves, ignoring the stock in the warehouse. You can imagine what any government would have to say about that. * That is exactly what has been happening with oil reserves. Yet, when it comes to public policy, it is deceptive to consider only only one type of reserve and not another. There is no reason why journalists or others considering public policy issues should consider what is on the shelves -- the "proven" reserves -- and never consider what is stored in the"warehouse" of other categories of oil reserves -- identified, probable, potential, ultimately recoverable and unconventional. Obviously, the analogy isn't entirely accurate. Oil reserves are not so easily counted. But the point is that something is fundamentally askew here, and that we have been led astray by a deceptive technique for handling scientific information. Next: Comparing USGS and oil industry reserve estimates http://www.radford.edu/~wkovarik/oil/

First off my post is just a news article not my opinion. As far as threatening my dream of an RV , If it happens it happens. I have never thought of this as an investment, more like gambling. But Everyday I'm still playing. I just think the whole gloom and doom scenerios regarding peak oil is fabricated by the environmentalists. I don't believe their spin on global warming either. The real problem is over population of this planet, Mankind may perish but you can bet that the planet will be OK

Oil reserves in Iraq From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Oil reserves in Iraq will be the largest in the world according to recent geological surveys and seismic data.[1] The Iraqi government has stated that new exploration showed Iraq has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, with more than 350 billion barrels.[1] Officially confirmed reserves rank third largest in the world at approximately 143 billion barrels (22.7×10^9 m3).[2] As a result of military occupation and civil unrest, the official statistics have not been revised since 2001 and are largely based on 2-D seismic data from three decades ago. International geologists and consultants have estimated that unexplored territory may contain vastly larger reserves.[3] A measure of the uncertainty about Iraq's oil reserves is indicated by the fact that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) estimated that Iraq had 112 billion barrels (17.8×10^9 m3), whereas the United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimated it was closer to 78 Gbbl (12.4×10^9 m3) and Iraq's prewar deputy oil minister claimed it might have 300 Gbbl (48×10^9 m3). The source of the uncertainty is that due to decades of war and unrest, much of Iraq oil wells are run down and unkept. Repairs to the wells and oil facilities should make far more oil available economically from the same deposits. In fact, Iraq may prove to be contain the largest extractable deposits of oil in the entire Middle East once this upgrading and facility improvements have advanced.[4] After more than a decade of sanctions and two Gulf Wars, Iraq’s oil infrastructure needs modernization and investment. Despite a large reconstruction effort, the Iraqi oil industry has not been able to meet hydrocarbon production and export targets. The World Bank estimates that an additional $1 billion per year would need to be invested just to maintain current production. Long-term Iraq reconstruction costs could reach $100-billion or higher, of which more than a third will go to the oil, gas and electricity sectors. Another challenge to Iraq's development of the oil sector is that resources are not evenly divided across sectarian lines. Most known resources are in the Shiite areas of the south and the Kurdish north, with few resources in control of the Sunni population in the center. In 2006, Iraq's oil production averaged 2.0 million barrels per day (320×10^3 m3/d), down from around 2.6 Mbbl/d (410×10^3 m3/d) of production prior to the coalition invasion in 2003.[3] Iraq's reserve to production ratio is 158 years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_Iraq And your credentials are??????????????????????

WASHINGTON, April 24 (UPI) -- Iraq expects oil production to reach 10 million barrels per day within the next six years, the country's deputy prime minister said from Washington. Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Hussain al-Shahristani arrived in Washington this week for energy meetings with U.S. officials. Iraq next month is expected to put around a dozen oil and natural gas blocks up for auction in a fourth international licensing round. Shahristani, a former oil minister, said Iraq has proven oil reserves of 143 billion barrels plus potential reserves of around 214 billion barrels. "As we speak, Iraq is producing more than 3 million barrels per day of crude oil but we expect in the coming six years to be able to increase that capacity of production to more than 10 million barrels per day," he said. "This is to assure the world market that there is sufficient crude for them." Carlos Pascual, the U.S. coordinator for international energy affairs, said Washington was ready to work with Baghdad to help the country meet its production goals. Iraqi is without a comprehensive hydrocarbon law that would govern oil. Shahristani said prevailing laws would govern the oil sector until new legislation develops. The lack of legislation, however, hasn't discouraged international oil companies from investing in Iraq, he said Read more: http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Resources/2012/04/24/Iraq-sets-sights-on-10-million-bpd-mark/UPI-25081335270696/#ixzz1t3mnPzuC'>http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Resources/2012/04/24/Iraq-sets-sights-on-10-million-bpd-mark/UPI-25081335270696/#ixzz1t3mnPzuC http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Resources/2012/04/24/Iraq-sets-sights-on-10-million-bpd-mark/UPI-25081335270696/

Link please

Are they printing yet,

We will see an increase someday Soon I hope Go SHABS

On again off again Up in value down in value Confused

Just a business decision IMO

The news exaggerates everything Go shabs

So what happened? Hopeful

I'm hopeful Go SHABS

Go Shabs

Thanks for the sweet article

"Obama is betting on Iraq a lot" I agree with this line GO SHABS! Thanks yota