...AND CHEAPER...:

Iraq Oilfields Ready For Revival, Await Foreigners: And U.S. firm Weatherford International has a deal to operate in Rumaila North and in the Zubair oil field. (Javno, 2/02/09)

Iraq sits on an estimated 115 billion barrels of oil, the world's third largest reserves. But tin shacks still line the road to its oil fields, and the government is desperate to use oil income to rebuild the country.

Villas which once housed Russian workers are now in need of a refit and equipment worn down by war, sanctions and sectarian violence is hopelessly antiquated.

Deprived of foreign expertise and money, Iraqi engineers have grown adept at tinkering with old equipment and salvaging spare parts, but their maintenance is only skin deep.

"We painted the tanks, improved the checkpoint, the toilets ... simple things, not fundamental things for production," said Khodair Abd, a North Rumaila supervisor.

"There were companies supposed to come here for that, but I don't know what happened ... This is the same station that was installed in 1972," he added.

At the South Rumaila oilfield, which has an estimated output of 800,000 barrels of crude per day, a lack of equipment means valuable gas is burned off in huge flares, the smoke streaming like jets of ink into the blue desert sky.

The violence that almost tore Iraq apart in 2006 and 2007 has fallen sharply in the past 18 months and Iraq now believes the time has come for foreign firms to start showing up.

"The excuse of a lack of security has gone. The security situation has transformed, root and branch," said Mohammed Nasser, an engineer at the 1950s-era South Rumaila plant where antique dials, gauges and switch panels sit next to more modern pieces of electronic equipment.

Some foreign firms are taking tentative steps back in.