Lebanese firm inks deal to build refinery
in Iraqi Kurdistan
10.7.2006 | |
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ERBIL, Kurdistan-Iraq, July
9, 2006 (AFP) , -- Iraqi Kurdistan will soon have its own oil
refinery with a capacity of 250,000
barrels per day from newly discovered oil fields, the Lebanese
company chosen to implement the project said Sunday.
A memorandum of understanding was signed on Thursday between the
Kurdish Minister of Natural Resources, Ashti Horami, and Lebanon's
Make Oil AG to build the refinery over the next two years.
"There is an agreement with the Kurdish Regional Government, and we
will announce the full details in a week," company director Ahmed
Khair al-Din told AFP by phone from the company offices in Beirut.
Make Oil, which was registered in Lebanon in 1995, is already in the
process of constructing a cement plant in the northern Kurdish town
of Dohuk, near the Turkish border. |
Kurdistan oil fields in Kurdistan
Photo: AFP |
According to its rudimentary website, the company specializes in the
trade of crude oil as well as the construction of refineries.
The accord comes following the April announcement of the discovery
of an oil field in the Zakho region of Kurdistan near the Turkish
border -- the first in the Kurdish Autonomous Region.
The discovery was made by Norwegian company DNO and the field is
expected to produce 20,000 barrels per day by next year, with a view
to increasing output to 200,000 barrels per day by 2008.
Kurdistan has proven reserves of some 3.6 billion barrels, less than
3 percent of Iraq's total, though the Kurdish government has
estimated that reserves could be as high as 45 billion barrels.
Though safer than the rest of the country, perceived security risks
have kept down interest from major international oil companies,
leaving exploration to smaller outfits such as DNO, Canada's
Heritage Oil, or Britain's Sterling Energy which specialize in
riskier ventures.
Investors are also hesitant because the legal investment framework
for the Kurdish region's oil is not clear. Oil exploration in the
rest of the country must go through the ministry of oil, and the
constitution specifies that all of Iraq's oil belongs to all of its
people.
The Kurdish regional government maintains that it has the authority
to pursue its own agreements.
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