Going Where Oil Giants Fear to Tread

LONDON, Oct. 21 – The very risk and uncertainty that have made the international oil companies wary of going into Iraq has attracted small, aggressive engineering, drilling and contracting firms to the country.

“Like any market, people will take opportunities where they can,” said Norman Davidson Kelly, the president of Tigris Petroleum, which is working on two projects in Iraq, including an evaluation of fields in Maysan Province in southeastern Iraq, with Shell and BHP Billiton.
“The fact that the big companies are concerned means that the smaller ones can come in,” Mr. Kelly said. Tigris Petroleum has half a dozen people in Baghdad who collect data and coordinate with the Iraqis on behalf of the Shell-BHP venture.

While Iraq, with the world’s third-largest reserves of oil, represents an irresistible opportunity for small companies – and their interest may help stabilize the country’s faltering oil production – their involvement is not enough, politicians and oil experts say. Without billions of dollars in investment from conglomerates, Iraq seems poised to miss out on what is shaping up as the biggest oil boom in decades.

NY Times