I remember the outrage about the oil law, but not how it went down.

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News - US's Iraq oil grab is a done deal

The law represents no less than institutionalized raping and pillaging of Iraq's oil wealth. It represents the death knell of nationalized (from 1972 to 1975) Iraqi resources, now replaced by production sharing agreements (PSAs) - which translate into savage privatization and monster profit rates of up to 75% for (basically US) Big Oil. Sixty-five of Iraq's roughly 80 oilfields already known will be offered for Big Oil to exploit. As if this were not enough, the law reduces in practice the role of Baghdad to a minimum. Oil wealth, in theory, will be distributed directly to Kurds in the north, Shi'ites in the south and Sunnis in the center. For all practical purposes, Iraq will be partitioned into three statelets. Most of the country's reserves are in the Shi'ite-dominated south, while the Kurdish north holds the best prospects for future drilling.

The approval of the draft law by the fractious 275-member Iraqi Parliament, in March, will be a mere formality. Hussain al-Shahristani, Iraq's oil minister, is beaming. So is dodgy Barnham Salih: a Kurd, committed cheerleader of the US invasion and occupation, then deputy prime minister, big PSA fan, and head of a committee that was debating the law.

But there was not much to be debated. The law was in essence drafted, behind locked doors, by a US consulting firm hired by the Bush administration and then carefully retouched by Big Oil, the International Monetary Fund, former US deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz' World Bank, and the United States Agency for International Development. It's virtually a US law (its original language is English, not Arabic).

Daily Kos: What Happened to the Oil Law Benchmark?

Except for three vague sentences that deal with revenue sharing, the rest of a 33-page draft of the law effectively lays the foundation for the privatization of Iraq's oil industry.

As per the oil law, international oil companies could be granted 25 year (20, plus a 5 year extension) contracts which would give them much greater ownership of and profits from Iraqi oil fields than they would be allowed by other possible models for the development of the country's oil sector. Other major oil producers in the region, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran maintain nationalized oil systems that do not allow foreign control of their oil reserves.

The IMF insists that forgiveness of some of Iraq's debt is dependent on the passing of the legislation. While re-establishing a state owned Iraqi National Oil Company and giving it a role in maintaining pipelines and extracting oil from fields which are already being exploited, the law provides for the long-term leasing of the country's vast untapped reserves to foreign companies.

I fail to find anything that says that the oil law was passed or what oil law is operational in Iraq today, but I did find this:

Daily Kos: What Happened to the Oil Law Benchmark?

Except for three vague sentences that deal with revenue sharing, the rest of a 33-page draft of the law effectively lays the foundation for the privatization of Iraq's oil industry.

As per the oil law, international oil companies could be granted 25 year (20, plus a 5 year extension) contracts which would give them much greater ownership of and profits from Iraqi oil fields than they would be allowed by other possible models for the development of the country's oil sector. Other major oil producers in the region, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran maintain nationalized oil systems that do not allow foreign control of their oil reserves.

The IMF insists that forgiveness of some of Iraq's debt is dependent on the passing of the legislation. While re-establishing a state owned Iraqi National Oil Company and giving it a role in maintaining pipelines and extracting oil from fields which are already being exploited, the law provides for the long-term leasing of the country's vast untapped reserves to foreign companies.

BP group wins Iraq oil contract - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

BP, along with China's CNPC, secured the contract for the Rumaila oil field on Tuesday, the largest of Iraq's six oil fields on offer to foreign and state-owned companies.

The contract race is the first opportunity for global energy giants to gain a hold in the country since the Baath party nationalised the Iraq Petroleum Company in 1972, seven years before former president Saddam Hussein took power.

BP group wins Iraq oil contract - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

But Mahmoud Almusafir, a former Iraqi diplomat, told Al Jazeera that there were still questions over the transparency of oil contracts in the country.

He said: "This American propaganda [is] telling people that now Iraq is free to do whatever.

"But ... who is setting the price and who is controlling?

"Militias from Al Dawa party are controlling the country. They are under the American umbrella; the American occupation," he said.