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Iraq Kurdistan denies wrongdoing in DNO
affair
10.10.2009
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October
10, 2009
ERBIL-Hewlêr,
Kurdistan region 'Iraq', — Iraqi Kurdistan's oil
minister has denied wrongdoing in a murky stock deal
that has left some outsiders raising questions about
doing business in a relatively stable corner of
Iraq.
Ashti Hawrami, natural resources minister of the
semiautonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq,
defended financial assistance made privately over
the past year to two foreign companies working in
the region's Tawke oilfield.
Hawrami issued a a wide-ranging, nine-page statement
late on Friday. Earlier, in Oslo, Norwegian
authorities pushed for an investigation of
transactions made in shares of oil company DNO
International (DNO.OL), including trades involving
the Kurdish Regional government.
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Dr Ashti Hawrami, Kurdistan Regional Government
minister of natural resources |
Hawrami also vowed
Kurdistan would not export oil until a row with
Iraq's central government over payment to foreign
companies was settled.
DNO International sold 44 million of its own shares
last year to the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG),
which ended up in the hands of privately held
Turkish company Genel Energy,www.ekurd.netin
the process of merging with Heritage Oil a
London-listed oil company active in Kurdistan.
After the sale became public last month, the KRG
suspended DNO's activities for allegedly tarnishing
its reputation, but the firm's local operations have
since restarted.
In the statement, Hawrami said he arranged
assistance for the companies, whose financial woes
he said were due partly due to oil export
restrictions imposed by Iraq's central government,
in order to keep the region's energy plans on track.
"The reasons for the help were very clear and
sounded. Failure of these two companies would have
meant failure of the KRG's overall policy," he said.
He wrote that "the $50 million sum involved, which I
used for both purposes (initially for DNO and later
on for Genel), was approved by my prime minister. It
is important to realise that we had clear
justifications to help DNO and Genel,www.ekurd.netas
that was to our own self interest."
Kurdistan is feuding with the Oil Ministry in
Baghdad as it seeks to exploit its considerable
energy resources independently. The ministry deems
Kurdish contracts such as the one with DNO illegal.
While exports from Kurdish fields began this year
with backing of the ministry, foreign companies
working in Kurdistan have not yet been paid for
those exports.
There are few signs the central government, whose
oil marketing agency is actually exporting the
Kurdish oil, is going to budge on its refusal to
provide Kurdish officials with that money.
"We will only resume export with guaranteed
payments," Hawrami wrote.
The minister also blamed political opponents for
trying to exploit the DNO situation, faulted the
bank which facilitated the stock deal for failing to
provide complete information and heaped criticism on
the Iraqi Oil Ministry.
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
Reuters
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