BAGHDAD – Hussain al-Shahristani will be reappointed Iraqi oil minister when a new cabinet is unveiled on Monday, senior officials said, keeping in place the architect of plans to turn Iraq into a top global oil producer.
Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari, a Kurd, also will remain at his post but a final selection of a new finance minister had not yet been made, sources close to Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said.
Shahristani, a Shi’ite, led the oil ministry as it set Iraq on an ambitious path to boost its production capacity to 12 million barrels per day in the next six or seven years, rivalling global leader Saudi Arabia, from 2.5 million bpd now.
Analysts say target of 6-7 million bpd is more realistic. Shahristani will be a key member of Maliki’s new cabinet as Iraq tries to rebuild damaged and neglected infrastructure more than seven years after the US-led invasion that ousted Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein and touched off sectarian warfare that killed tens of thousands of people.
Iraqis have been waiting for a new government for more than nine months since a March parliamentary election that failed to produce a clear winner and displayed the depth of Iraq’s ethnic and sectarian divisions. After months of squabbling over positions and power, the main Shi’ite, Sunni and Kurdish factions reached agreement last month on dividing up the top government posts.
Shahristani, a nuclear scientist who oversees the ministry that delivers about 95 percent of Iraq’s federal revenues, will return to the job he started in 2006. “The minister of oil will stay in his place as the minister of oil,” said Abdul-Hadi al-Hasani, an official with Maliki’s coalition and a former deputy leader of parliament’s oil and gas committee.
Other senior sources, including one close to Shahristani, confirmed that he would return as oil minister rather than take a post as deputy prime minister in charge of energy affairs. Shahristani did not think the new job would give him enough influence, a senior member of Maliki’s negotiating team said. Shahristani’s return amounts to a pledge to oil companies to honour contracts to develop Iraq’s vast oil reserves.
