I have always appreciated professional people telling their life experience as I believe this will have an impact on their associates or the following generations.
I have just read a recently published book in Iraq by one of the veterans of the oil industry. The book titled Biography and Memoirs: The Task to Develop the Oil Sector is written by Mishal Hammodat, who served the industry for 30 years between 1953 and 1983.
The writer traces his beginnings and schooling in Mosul where at the end of his secondary school in 1948 he was granted a government scholarship to study engineering in the USA and he relates his experience there especially with regards to social and organisational activities at Illinois University.
The scholarship programme proved to be vital as the early graduates were the first in a programme to put Iraqis at the helm culminating in legislation to that effect in 1958.
Hammodat takes us to the early years of the construction of Daura refinery in 1953 where as a young graduate he worked with the contractors to build and operate the first modern oil refinery in Iraq. He tells us how the Iraqis took over the refinery in 1958 after the revolution partly because qualified Iraqis were already there and partly because American and British engineers were withdrawn by their governments.
Government takeover
Hammodat then became field manager of Khaniqin Oil Company, the first to be taken over by the Iraqi government in 1958 to operate the oil field on the Iraq-Iran border and the small refinery there.
Strained relations between Iraq and the oil companies culminated in Law No 80 of 1961 which stripped the oil companies of their control over lands except those in producing fields.
Hammodat takes us through the sentiments of that time and the new responsibility on Iraqis in the industry and the establishment of Iraq National Oil Company, which because of the political situation, was unable to become operational until 1970.
In 1964, Hammodat became general manager of the newly established Gas Distribution Administration to develop gas resources which were ignored by the oil companies. The gas industry was a small pilot project in Basra.
The administration immediately contracted to bring gas from Kirkuk to Baghdad and to process liquefied petroleum gas and distribute it across Iraq. It was the beginning of a great effort to salvage flared gas through major gas projects in the North and South in the early 1980s.
Hammodat headed the negotiations with Turkey to export Iraqi gas as early as 1967 and his counterpart was Turgut Ozal who later became president of Turkey. Unfortunately the project did not go ahead.
Hammodat was made general manager of the Refineries Administration in 1968 and the gas was lumped with the refineries, a step which was considered negative because gas responsibilities became fragmented but the refineries administration became one of the largest and most important in Iraq as it took over gas processing and sulphur recovery in Kirkuk as well as the lube oil refining expansion in 1968.
The Oil Products Distribution Administration was Hammodat's next call of duty where he served in 1969.
The nationalisation of oil in 1972 brought new responsibilities and was successful not only because of the political will behind it but due to the number of qualified Iraqis in all sectors of the industry. Hammodat served in many capacities in the ministry and was behind a number of studies and approval of expansions in the downstream sector until 1981 when he was put in charge of the Training and Manpower Development one of the best initiatives to create a well-educated and trained manpower.
In Hammodat's time oil production increased from under a million barrels per day to three times as much and the refineries almost increased ten-fold and gas utilisation became high enough to justify further expansions.
Hammodat takes us into the decision-making process of some of these important changes. He points out sometimes the difficulties of technical people working in changing political circumstances.
He took many unemployed engineers over and above the allocation to prepare them for the expansion.
The oil industry in Iraq may be passing through difficult times and it is books like Hammodat's that may be an incentive for young engineers to excel and prepare for better times to come.
The writer is former head of Energy Studies Department in the Opec Secretariat in Vienna.