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By Simon Watkins of OilPrice.com

With the U.S.’s current primary Middle East focus being on trying to deter a widening of the Israel-Hamas War, China and Russia have been busy cementing their influence elsewhere in the region, most recently in Iraq. This remains a key target for Beijing and Moscow to expand their presence for three main reasons. First, it could easily become the world’s top producer of crude oil within a relatively short time if the endemic corruption in its hydrocarbons sector was curtailed. Second, its geographical positioning in the heart of the Middle East make it a vital link in building a network of logistical connections from the east of Eurasia into the west of Europe. And third, together with Iran under whose enduring influence its operates, it forms the core of the spiritual, political, military, and cultural Shia Crescent. A flurry of activity in the past couple of weeks involving Iraq, Russia, and China underline how seriously all these plans are moving forward. 

Firstly, plans to increase Iraq’s oil production and then to send that extra output to China in the first instance moved up a gear in last week’s Cabinet meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani.

Secondly, at the same Cabinet meeting last week, it was also agreed that Iraq should now give its full support to rolling out all aspects of the wide-ranging ‘Iraq-China Framework Agreement’ signed in December 2021, but agreed in principle more than a year before that.

Thirdly, given the scale and scope of the infrastructure developments to be implemented, there will be an extensive presence of Chinese ‘security’ personnel at the key projects throughout Iraq, the Iraq source told OilPrice.com last week.

Russia’s long-term plans to control a unified Iraq (along with China) – including the currently semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan in the north – as also analysed in depth in my new book on the new global oil market order, have also advanced in the last two weeks. October 11 saw Iraqi Prime Minister Al-Sudani meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, ostensibly to talk about the development of Iraq’s oil sector and the presence of Russian oil companies in it. In reality, according to the source who works closely with Iraq’s Oil Ministry, the discussions also included the future of oil exports from Kurdistan to Turkey, in which Russian oil giant, Rosneft, plays a key part, given its effective control over much of Kurdistan’s oil sector since 2017, as also covered in full in the book. Three days later, Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister for Energy and Oil Minister, Hayan Abdul Ghani, met with Alexander Dyukov, Chairman of Gazprom Neft to discuss future oil and gas projects in the south and north of Iraq.