The Water Constraint In Iraq

I emailed a few people with links to yesterday's Iraq post. One person who responded (and gave me permission to post his response) was Matt Simmons, who wrote:

At last fall’s Oil and Money conference, the EIG advisory board discussed BP’s just announced service contract. It was the opinion of both Sadad al-Husseini and Issham Chalabi, former Iraq Oil Minister, that the likelihood of these companies ramping up these oil targets is remote at best and if they happen, it will be like Cantarell, doomed for over production and subsequent rapid collapse. A big problem never addressed is the lack of quality water from the shrinking Iraq rivers to due water injection for creating artificial reservoir pressure.

Hope this helps shed some truth into these great hypes.

The other points I'll respond to at some future time, but the water issue I hadn't thought about at all, and seemed quite interesting and important.  Matt is alluding to the fact that it's common practice to inject water into oilfields to help drive the oil through the rock to the producing wells, and this water has to come from somewhere.