LONDON, September 20, -- The
Kurdistan Regional Government in the (north of Iraq) is to sign oil
contracts with companies next month, and is in talks with oil
majors, its oil minister said Wednesday.
Ashti Hawrami, the KRG's minister of natural resources, told
reporters on the sidelines of a London briefing on the region's oil
sector: "We have been talking to oil majors about specific areas,"
though he declined to say which companies were in the frame.
Officials from Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB.LN), Eni SpA (E), BHP
Billiton (BHP) and Statoil SA (STO) were among those at the
briefing.
The region's long-planned draft petroleum law "is ready to go to the
parliament of the KRG this month or next," he added, and he expects
it to be passed by lawmakers in October.
Among the thorny issues surrounding Kurdish oil production within
Iraq is who gets the revenue - the KRG or the government in Baghdad.
Hawrami said: "Kurdistan has no intention of withholding revenues
from Baghdad " from new oil fields to be developed in the undisputed
territories in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Although northern Iraq's oil reserves aren't as big as the giant
southern fields around Basra, geologists say the north still has
good potential, especially as the area is largely unexplored and
modern techniques such as seismic imaging have never been used in
Iraq.
The regional government estimates northern Iraq's reserves at around
45 billion barrels of oil and 100 trillion cubic feet of gas.
Oil companies are attracted to Kurdistan because of its relative
safety and high levels of security compared with the rest of Iraq
where it is virtually impossible for foreign oil companies to work.
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