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Iraq Kurds want to resolve oil row, resume exports
In a statement responding to a call from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to settle a dispute between Iraq’s Arabs and Kurds over the country’s oil wealth, the Kurdish regional government said it was considering publishing contracts it has signed with foreign oil companies. “The KRG is willing to enter a serious dialogue about the subject, and we are willing completely and in the interest of the Iraqi people to renew exports of crude oil from KRG fields at a level of no less than 100,000 barrels per day,” it said.
The statement added that the Kurdish regional authorities hoped to boost output to 200,000 barrels per day this year and attain an output capacity of 1 million bpd within the next four years.
Iraq’s Kurdish region is believed to be rich with oil reserves but development has been stalled by disagreement between the Arab-led government in Baghdad and the semi-autonomous Kurdish authorities over revenue.
The regional government has signed production sharing agreements with a string of foreign companies, including Norway’s DNO and Turkey’s Genel Enerji, but Iraq’s Oil Ministry considers those deals illegal. “In order to show our seriousness about the subject, we are contemplating publishing the ratified contracts with DNO and Genel,” the KRG said.
Prime Minister Maliki on Jan. 3 called for an end to the row over oil after he met with new northern iraqi Prime Minister Barham Salih. The Iraqi government briefly allowed the regional administration to start exporting oil from two fields, Taq Taq and Tawke, over the summer but its refusal to pay the private firms running the oilfield projects led to the suspension of the exports.
The dispute over oil is part of a larger stand-off between Baghdad and the Kurdish region over disputed territories in Iraq’s north that US military officials fear could one day lead to Iraq’s next broad conflict.
At the heart of the dispute lies the city of Kirkuk, which sits over a vast sea of oil and is claimed by the Kurds as their ancestral capital. The city’s Arab and Turkmen population fiercely oppose Kurdish aspirations to have Kirkuk wrapped into their northern enclave, which has enjoyed virtual independence since after the 1991 Gulf War.
Salih was Maliki’s deputy prime minister before taking up his current position.
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