Iraq’s Kurdistan regional government drafts its own oil policy

Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) said it has drafted its own oil policy and a partnership agreement with oil firms, adding it has also submitted a proposal regarding a federal oil law to the central government.
A number of the region's officials expected that the draft would be soon presented to Iraqi Kurdistan National Assembly and necessary approvals would be granted to allow foreign firms to invest in the region.

On his part, Kurdistan's Natural Resources Minister Ashti Hawrami issued four press releases regarding Petroleum Act of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, management of oil revenues and oil in Kirkuk. During the last two months, Hawrami participated in the meetings of the national energy committee whose deliberations have not achieved other than general regulations for dividing oil revenues.
Meanwhile, the drafted act was discussed at length during an economic forum organized by an Iraqi development centre.

Iraqi oil experts noted that the act stressed the necessity of decentralization and federalism between Iraq and Kurdistan, but was directed toward a strong centralization within the region itself. Also, the experts pointed out that the act was issued before the federal oil law that was supposed to be the basis for all federal regional bylaws.
They also added that the act stipulated that oil in Kurdistan was the property of its people which contradicted Article 108 of Iraq's constitution that said "Oil and gas are the ownership of all the people of Iraq in all the regions and governorates." KRG Premier Nechirvan Idris Barzani said he hoped the ongoing disagreement over oil issues with Baghdad would be settled by end of Eid.

In September, KRG threatened to part from Iraq if the central government continued demanding a role in developing oil resources in Kurdistan. So far, KRG signed four oil exploration and excavation accords with Norwegian, Canadian and Turkish firms.
The government hoped to commence production by 2007 with a total capacity of 40,000 bpd that would gradually increase to 200,000 bpd by 2008.