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Iraq's oil minister: Texas' Hunt Oil
accord with Iraqi Kurdistan government Illegal
12.9.2007
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September
12, 2007
VIENNA, Austria, - -An
agreement
announced this weekend between US-based Hunt Oil Co.
and the self-ruled Kurdistan region of northern Iraq
to explore for oil is illegal, Iraq’s oil minister
Hussain al-Shahristani said Monday.
Those comments underscore the central government’s
view that exploration contracts with foreign
companies should be signed only after the adoption
of a new national oil law, which has been stalled
for months, AP wrote.
“Any oil deal has no standing as far as the
government of Iraq is concerned,“ al-Shahristani
said as he arrived for an OPEC meeting in Vienna.
“All these contracts have to be approved by the
Federal Authority before they are legal.
This (contract) was not presented for approval. It
has no standing.“
Hunt Oil, a privately held independent oil company,
and the Kurdistan regional government said Saturday
they had signed a production-sharing contract for
petroleum exploration in the Kurdistan region of
northern Iraq. Terms were not disclosed.
Dallas, Texas-based Hunt declined to comment Monday.
The deal is one of several the Kurds have signed
with foreign oil companies in the past few years and
the first since they put their own oil law into
effect in August.
These deals have angered Baghdad, but Kurdistan
region appears determined to advance oil exploration
in the three-province area they govern in Kurdistan
region 'northern Iraq', as Iraq’s long-delayed
federal oil law remains hobbled by
disagreements--among others, about the control of
revenues.
Despite Iraq’s vast oil reserves, major
international companies have sat on the sidelines,
not only for security reasons but because of the
absence of legislation governing the industry and
offering protection for investments.
AP
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