Corps, Contractor and Iraqis Prioritize Projects to Bring Back Oil Production
"We are looking in a total way at the infrastructure and working with the ministry to get them back to prewar production capability," says Steven Wright, a spokesman for the Corps' Kuwait-based Restore Iraqi Oil Task Force. Until recently, the participating organizations have focused on discrete aspects of the problem, trying to manage their part of an industry in crisis. The July 6-9 meeting gave participants a chance to set priorities.
The essential elements for hitting prewar production capacity are pipeline restoration, maintaining steady filtered-water supplies needed to reinject into Iraqi oil wells, electricity and security against the looting and sabotage that is being witnessed throughout the country, explains Wright.