Expert Sees Obstacles to Profit Expectations from Iraqi Oilfields.

By Julie Breaux, Odessa American, Texas Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

May 10--MIDLAND, Texas--Redeveloping Iraq's oilfields will mean windfall profits for the international oil and gas industry, says University of Houston professor Michael Economides.

"There is going to be a windfall. You cannot not have that," said Economides, co-author of Color of Oil: The History, the Money and the Politics of the World's Biggest Business (Round Oak Publishing, 2000).

But the pennies from heaven won't begin to fall until several knotty issues are resolved, Economides said.

Before a speech last week to the American Association of Drilling Engineers, Economides told the Odessa American one important tactical issue will be the lifting of the United Nations' trade embargo, which has discouraged investment in Iraq since the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

The Bush Administration last week introduced a draft resolution that, under the auspices of the …