Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Iraqi, Kurdish officials to meet on draft oil law
Oil
(Reuters) - Officials from Iraq's central government and the Kurdistan region will meet this week to iron out last-minute disputes over a draft oil law that will decide control of the world's third largest oil reserves. Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said last week the law would be ready for submission this week to parliament, and he expected lawmakers to make no major amendments.
But Kurdish energy officials have called the draft's annexes unconstitutional, raising the prospect of more disagreements and delays that dogged the lengthy law-writing process. Ashti Hawrami, minister of natural resources in the autonomous Kurdistan region, told Reuters his objections centered on annexes of the law that would wrest oilfields from regional governments and place them under a new state-oil company.
Nechirvan Barzani, the Kurdish regional prime minister, said Kurds wanted to include a separate law on oil revenue management that would set up a Kurdish fund as part of a "package deal" with the oil law. "The oil draft law and the oil revenues distribution law should be passed together in parliament. Without the revenues law the oil draft law would be incomplete, " Barzani told Reuters. "The oil revenues should be deposited in a special account and the share of the Kurdish region must be defined clearly and we have no objection if this account is run by Iraq or an international committee".
The central government wants revenues put in a central account and distributed according to Iraq's population. Shahristani, who has said he will listen to the Kurdish government's opinions this week, said in January that the national oil company will be given control of the country's most prized oilfields, and fields on their periphery.
Hawrami said draft annexes would give the state oil company control of an unacceptably high 80 percent of Iraq's oil reserves. He said an Iraq National Oil Company (INOC) should maintain control of producing fields, but did not have the expertise or capital for discovered but undeveloped fields. The annexes under dispute include: current productive oil fields; discovered and undeveloped oil fields; discovered and undeveloped oil fields; and expeditionary areas.
But Kurdish energy officials have called the draft's annexes unconstitutional, raising the prospect of more disagreements and delays that dogged the lengthy law-writing process. Ashti Hawrami, minister of natural resources in the autonomous Kurdistan region, told Reuters his objections centered on annexes of the law that would wrest oilfields from regional governments and place them under a new state-oil company.
Nechirvan Barzani, the Kurdish regional prime minister, said Kurds wanted to include a separate law on oil revenue management that would set up a Kurdish fund as part of a "package deal" with the oil law. "The oil draft law and the oil revenues distribution law should be passed together in parliament. Without the revenues law the oil draft law would be incomplete, " Barzani told Reuters. "The oil revenues should be deposited in a special account and the share of the Kurdish region must be defined clearly and we have no objection if this account is run by Iraq or an international committee".
The central government wants revenues put in a central account and distributed according to Iraq's population. Shahristani, who has said he will listen to the Kurdish government's opinions this week, said in January that the national oil company will be given control of the country's most prized oilfields, and fields on their periphery.
Hawrami said draft annexes would give the state oil company control of an unacceptably high 80 percent of Iraq's oil reserves. He said an Iraq National Oil Company (INOC) should maintain control of producing fields, but did not have the expertise or capital for discovered but undeveloped fields. The annexes under dispute include: current productive oil fields; discovered and undeveloped oil fields; discovered and undeveloped oil fields; and expeditionary areas.
Labels: Ashti Hawrami, draft oil law, Hussain al-Shahristani, INOC, Iraq National Oil Co., Kurdistan, Nechirvan Barzani
