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Iraq's petroleum wars
11.10.2006
By Darya Ibrahim, SOMA Issue no.14 Oct 6 - Oct 19,
2006 |
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Sulaimaniyah,
Kurdistan Region, (Iraq), (SOMA),-- The Iraqi Oil
Minister’s statement that the central government
would not respect the investment contracts signed by
the KRG has sparked a fierce reaction from Prime
Minister Nechirvan Barzani.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has always
insisted that the Iraqi constitution allows them to
drill newly discovered oil sources. However, many in
the central government in Baghdad have often
contested the legality of contracts drawn up on this
basis by the KRG. In an interview with Al Sabah
newspaper on 24 September, Iraqi Oil Minister
Hussein Shahristani said: “The Ministry is not
committed to investment contracts signed by the
Kurdistan Regional Government; we shall review the
terms of these contracts.”
The statement drew a furious response from KRG Prime
Minister Nechirvan Barzani, who issued a detailed
statement in response on 27 September.
In the meantime, reports surfaced in Cawder weekly
Kurdish-language newspaper on 25 September, saying
that the central government has stopped work on oil
wells near the Hamrin Mountains. Cawder reported:
“Iraq's Oil Ministry decided to stop drilling 128
oil wells in Kurdistan, and a source inside the
ministry added that the main reason for ignoring the
project is because the fate of these regions rich in
oil are to be decided by a referendum under article
140 of the Iraqi constitution, it may be that they
become part of the Kurdish region.” |
Photo:SOMA |
The drilling started on these wells in Khashm Ahmer,
18km east of Kifri, Glabat and Gumar and Nadoman in
Khanaqeen, in 2003. However, although the drilling
should have been finished in 2004, they have not
been finished and have now been abandoned.
Hama Jaza Salih, Advisor to the Kurdish Regional
Government and Oil Engineer, who built the first oil
refinery for the KRG, explained that not all those
places listed in the Cawder article were
traditionally Kurdish areas, giving the example that
Khashm Al Ahmar is also known as Uzeim, which is
actually an Arab town. Salih goes on to say that
these wells were initially part of a plan drawn up
to help Iraq to start producing the same number of
barrels of oil per day as it did before the war.
Therefore the afore-mentioned wells were drilled in
the Kirkuk Governorate.
However, Salih says that when these plans changed
some of the drilling stopped, but not just in the
Kurdish areas. He adds that while some of those not
in the Kurdish region were finished, they may still
finish some of those in the Kurdish region,
especially the one in the village of Palkana, 10 km
from Kifri. Salih explained that the KRG had a
masterplan in 1994 to produce 30,000 barrels of oil
per day from Shiwashok area near Koya/Taqtaq, but
this agenda came to a halt, partly because of the UN
Oil-for-Food program, and partly due to another
reason, which he said he did not wish to discuss.
“But this masterplan that we had decided to work on
was very important for the oil industry in
Kurdistan; 30,000 barrels per day is a huge
quantity, and it would have solved our petrol
problems today,” he says. “But this plan is being
reexamined right now, and we hope to start working
toward it again.”
“However, in light of the Iraqi Oil Minister's
comments in the Al Sabah newspaper, it would not
surprise me if the central government is trying to
obstruct the development of the oil industry in the
Kurdish region,” says Salih.
From his statement issued on 27 September, it
appears that the Kurdistan Prime Minister does not
doubt that the Central Government is indeed
interfering in the Kurdish oil industry, saying: “As
the elected Kurdistan official ultimately
responsible for my government’s oil contracts, I
resent Dr. Shahristani’s efforts to sabotage foreign
investment in Kurdistan’s oil sector. The KRG is
working to develop petroleum in Kurdistan, an area
that previous Iraqi regimes had declared off limits
as a means of punishing our people.”
Barzani then outlined how ineffective the Iraqi Oil
Ministry has been since the fall of Saddam Hussein,
saying that it had failed to implement any new
projects in the rest of Iraq and had done nothing to
try and attract foreign investment to Iraq. He then
said: “Dr. Shahristani would better spend his time
getting his ministry working rather than tearing
down our achievements.”
The issue of oil looks set to remain a contentious
issue, especially with the oil rich Kirkuk region up
for grabs in next year’s proposed referendum. If it
was Shahristani's intention to ruffle Kurdish
feathers, at such a crucial point in the province
law negotiations among other things, then he
certainly achieved his goal. The Prime Minister's
parting shot to Shahristani was: “The people of
Kurdistan chose to be in a voluntarily union with
Iraq on the basis of the constitution. If Baghdad
Ministers refuse to abide by that constitution, the
people of Kurdistan reserve the right to reconsider
our choice.”
Soma-digest.com
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