India and Iraq Friday inked four agreements, including an MoU on energy cooperation and in the management of water resources following talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his visiting Iraqi counterpart Nouri al Maliki.
The other two agreements include a MoU between their respective foreign ministries on foreign office consultations and between the Foreign Service Institutes of the MEA and Iraq's ministry of foreign affairs for training diplomats.
The memorandum of understanding on energy cooperation envisages cooperation in the areas of upstream and downstream oil and gas activities and related infrastructure.
It focuses on concluding the contract for exploration of Block 8 in southern Iraq awarded to ONGC Videsh Limited, the overseas arm of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation.
The block was awarded to OVL in November 2000 by the then Saddam Hussein government and is estimated to hold 645 million barrels of in-place reserves, of which 54 million are recoverable, according to reports.
The MoU also envisages cooperation in the areas of natural gas, refineries and training.
The agreement in water resources management envisages cooperation at the national, regional and international levels in the field of water resources management and development by collaboration and sharing of expertise in the areas of hydrology flood and drought management, irrigation and draining.
Iraq has sought help from India to manage its drying up rivers of Tigris and Euphrates which have been ignored in the long years of war. It wants to resuscitate its agriculture.
