Iraq ditches plans for no-bid oil contracts

AN IRAQI plan to award six no-bid contracts to Western oil companies has been withdrawn, those involved in the negotiations say.

Iraq’s Oil Minister, Hussain al-Shahristani, told reporters at an OPEC summit meeting in Vienna on Tuesday that talks for one-year deals, which were announced in June and subsequently delayed, had dragged on for so long that the companies could not now fulfil the work within that time frame.

The companies