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The Kurdish regional government’s surprise
announcement that it had begun drilling for oil in
the north of Iraq sparked alarm yesterday, two weeks
ahead of national elections.
Iraqi politicians questioned the invocation of a
disputed constitutional clause suggesting regional
governments had the right to enter independently
into contracts to develop new fields.
The KRG announced on Tuesday that Norway’s DNO
company had begun drilling the Tawke well in the
province of Dohuk near the Turkish border as part of
a production-sharing agreement concluded in June
2004.
However, prime ministerial spokesman Laith Kubba
said yesterday the central government had yet to be
formally informed and would refer the matter to its
legal adviser.
Concern about how Iraq’s oil resources will be
shared has been a source of discontent among Sunni
Arabs, who fear autonomous deals by Shi’ites in the
south and Kurds in the north will cut them off from
oil wealth.
Earlier Iraqi governments had contested the KRG’s
right to enter into independent contracts. Sunni
Arab politicians, meanwhile, said the Kurdish
decision was a takeover of oil resources that ought
to belong to the nation.
“This shows that the Kurdish administration in the
north is not interested in safeguarding resources
for all of the Iraqi people,” Reuters quoted Hussein
al-Falluji, a prominent Sunni lawyer, as saying. “If
they do not reverse their position we will fight
this through diplomatic and political channels.”
The deal hinges on the controversial article 109 of
Iraq’s constitution, which gives the federal
government the right to manage oil and gas from
“current” fields in co-operation with the regions
and distribute it to the governorates according to
their population. It does not spell out the division
of responsibilities for exploration and production
in new fields.
Kurdish leaders have previously asserted that the
resources from new fields in the north are to be
controlled by the KRG.
“The fact that they mention existing fields implies
that there is reference to unexploited fields, and
the inference is because they are not under the
federal government’s powers they are under the
control of the regions,” said Nicholas Somerville,
executive director of the Kurdistan Development
Corporation (KDC), a public-private initiative with
the KRG.
In negotiations over the constitution, a regional
right to develop unexploited fields was opposed by
many Sunni Arabs from the oil-poor centre of the
country, and is presumably one of the main points to
come up in a discussion of possible constitutional
amendments scheduled for early next year.
Since the lifting of sanctions on Iraq following the
2003 invasion, the KRG has been in negotiations with
a number of parties, to explore the self-rule zone.
At 115bn barrels, Iraq’s proven oil reserves are the
world’s third largest, but 90 per cent of the
country is unexplored.
In August 2004, then-oil minister Thamer Ghadhban
said Iraq had “unconfirmed or potential” reserves of
214bn barrels. Of this, the KDC estimates the
Kurdistan region contains some 45bn barrels.
www.ft.com
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