Face Time with Hussein al-Shahristani

(CNN) -- Hussein al-Shahristani is a survivor; an internationally respected nuclear scientist who endured torture and solitary confinement in Iraq's notorious Abu Graib prison for defying former dictator Saddam Hussein.

He's now the country's oil minister, a post he's held since 2006 after turning down an approach from the United Nations to become Iraq's interim prime minister.

As oil minister, one of Hussein al-Shahristani's main challenges has been to contend with relentless attacks by insurgents on the country's oil pipelines and facilities.

Iraq's exporting almost two million barrels of oil a day, far short of the potential for a country sitting on the world's third largest oil reserves.

John Defterios (JD) spoke with Hussein al-Shahristani (HS) and asked whether increased U.S. troop levels had helped boost Iraq's oil output in the last six months.

(HS): The improved security have definitely helped our production. As a matter of fact, the people who have been attacking our pipelines, we have entered into discussions with them. We have managed to convince them to join our Oil Protection Force and be paid for protection... protecting those pipelines. And now we have been able to increase our production by almost 400,000 barrels a day in the last few months by exporting through Jihan. So we increased our production and all the increase has gone into exports. So Iraq is almost exporting near two million barrels a day now.

(JD): By the end of 2008, where do you expect to be in terms of production?

(HS): We are planning to add another 400 to 500,000 barrels a day to our current production of just under two and a half, about 2.4. So that will take us somewhere between 2.8 and three million barrels a day. This we'll be doing through technical support, contracts that we are negotiating and will be signing shortly with all the major oil companies, and we have plans beyond 2008 of course.

(JD): A sore point of course is in the north, in the Kurdish region, with the regional government signing contracts with other exploration companies. Will these hold? I mean what's the motivation here to break out their own oil revenue base?

(HS): Well, the Iraqi government has announced that those contracts have no standing with the Iraqi government. Those companies are not allowed to work on Iraqi territory; they cannot export oil. As a matter of fact, they will not be allowed to work in Iraq, in any other part of Iraq in the future because they've broken the Iraqi law and any activity in the oil sector without the approval of the government in Baghdad -- which represents the whole nation -- are illegal.

(JD): How do you pull this together, though? It's a fairly provocative move by the Kurdish government to take that sort of stand. Is this the sense of just a bargaining position to get more?

(HS): I mean that's how it has been seen. Provocative, as you refer to it. By the rest of the Iraqis, there is almost unanimity among all Iraqis now that these oil contracts are not in the interest of the nation. They are not even in the interest of the Kurdish people really, [in] the way that they've been handled, secretly, behind closed doors. There's no transparency, no competition, no public tendering.

(JD): What happens to Kirkuk, which has great potential to expand production right now. It's in that in-between zone, if I can say it that way?

(HS): Well, Kirkuk is an issue of its own. It's being discussed in Iraq very hotly. But the Kirkuk Field, which is one of the supergiant fields -- it's the first Iraqi-producing field -- is going to be offered in the first bidding round and will have a contract with the central government with the approval of the federal cabinet for the further development of that field.

(JD): Most people don't realize how much is not discovered or not being produced yet in Iraq in terms of greenfield production. What's there? What is the potential for the next three to four years?

(HS): Well, the discovered fields in Iraq are about 80 fields. Out of these, only 27 are producing now. Even with the 27 producing fields, we expect to reach between four and four and a half million barrels a day in three to four years time. We have another 50 fields that are discovered -- we know oil is there, how much oil is there and what needs to be done. By developing those fields, we should hit six million barrels a day and beyond. And there are still some 400 other geological structures with the high possibility of discovery that have not been explored yet. E-mail to a friend