An all-day auction for eight oil development contracts in Iraq fell short of expectations with only one contract signed, the Iraqi Oil Ministry said. A partnership between British Petroleum and the China National Petroleum Corp., secured a contract to develop Iraq's biggest oil field, Rumaila, which has an estimated 17 billion barrels of oil, The Washington Post reported Wednesday. But the deal required the companies to accept a fee of $2 per barrel for every barrel they extract from the field between the current output of 1 million barrels a day to a benchmark of 2.85 million barrels a day. BP spokesman Toby Odone said, We're pleased with the process so far, although the companies' bid included a $3.99 per barrel fee to raise production to the higher mark. The lack of signed deals is a setback for the country and for the United States, which is counting on oil development in Iraq to get the country back on its financial feet. Iraq is producing about 2.4 million barrels a day, well bel

Text of report by state-run Syrian news agency SANA website on 5 September [Report, citing statement to Damascus Al-Ba'th newspaper by Umar al-Hamad, director-general of the Syrian Oil Company [SOC], on SOC's production of oil, natural gas, and electric power, datelined Damascsus; SANA headline: "68.8m barrels of oil were produced in first half of 2008."] Damascus -Syria's production of oil in the first half of 2008 totalled 68,822,900 barrels of oil, of which 32,171,133 barrels were light oil and 36,651,767 were heavy oil.

Text of report by London-based newspaper Al-Hayat website on 11 August [Report by Adil Mahdi in Baghdad: "$43 Billion Iraq's Oil Revenues in Seven Months"] Asim Jihad, the Iraqi Oil Ministry spokesman, has told "Al- Hayat" that his country's oil revenues during the past seven months reached $43 billion from the export of 411 million barrels of crude oil and said he was expecting the annual revenues to reach more than $70 billion by the end of the year.

Text of report by Iranian state-run provincial TV from Khuzestan on 28 December The managing-director of the National Iranian South Oil Company said, "This company produces 50,000 barrels of crude oil more than the estimated quantity.

Text of report by Iraqi Al-Sharqiyah TV on 22 August Iraqi oil exports via southern seaports resumed today after electric power was returned to the main oil pumping station, Al- Zubayr 1, which, according to a source within the South Oil Company, was deprived of power following an armed attack.