Iraq's first EITI report on its oil industry raises questions

PwC has produced a first report for Iraq under the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI,) breaking down some $41.3 billion of sales to 34 international companies in 2009. The report raises a number of questions. (EITI is a global initiative to get mineral-producing countries to be more transparent about their revenues.)

An analysis of the report by consultants OpenOil raises some worrying questions. Among others:

"The result is interesting reading but raises as many questions as it answers, about Iraq’s selling process and the various stages in it, why many company reports were submitted without executive sign-off, as stipulated in the process and, most curiously, why the Federal Reserve Bank of New York failed to send account statements for Iraqi oil receipts despite repeated requests over a period of many months."

Read Open Oil's full executive summary here.