Iraq Oil Report

Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government will announce two more oil deals in coming days as it develops its oil sector with state-owned and private oil firms.

There has been no response yet from Baghdad after the KRG’s announcement yesterday of another six production-sharing contracts it has signed. The KRG’s semiautonomous region in Iraq’s north has the geological makeup for major oil and natural gas deposits but has 0.5 percent of Iraq’s proven oil reserves.

Baghdad has called the KRG’s oil deals illegal, saying it needs to wait for a national oil law to be approved. That law is being held up for lack of agreement as to whether the federal government or regions and provinces have the authority to sign deals, among other reasons.

KRG Natural Resources Minister Ashti Hawrami told United Press International in a telephone interview two additional oil deals, including at least one with “a Western company,” will be announced “in just a few days, maybe a week.”

According to a KRG map of exploration blocks, it has 28 either open or pending contracts. …

The KRG also awarded four “strategic blocks” to the Kurdistan Exploration and Production Co. and gave the discovered by not developed Khurmala oil field to the Kurdistan National Oil Co. Both KEPCO — which will concentrate on exploration and production — and KNOC — an operator of discovered fields — were newly formed under the KRG’s oil law but would send revenues to Baghdad to redistribute.

Hawrami said the companies “answer to the Council of Ministers in Kurdistan and is monitored and regulated by the Ministry of Natural Resources in Kurdistan, and is recognized by the Parliament in Kurdistan.”

Read the entire story by UPI HERE.

There are reports that Reliance Industries paid between $15.5 and $17.5 million as a signing bonus for the two production sharing contracts with the KRG.

When asked in October, following the announcement of two additional production-sharing contracts, Hawrami told United Press International the amounts of the signing bonuses, paid to the KRG, are “variable, meaningful and important enough to ensure that the contractors are serious to deliver their responsibilities under the contract.”

When asked to clarify, Hawrami said it was “confidential … but designed to get ongoing commitments of the contractors.”

Check out the rest of the press reports on the KRG’s moves:

*Reliance Industries Ltd. signs oil deal in northern Iraq, — the Press Trust of India.

*Iraqi Kurds sign 7 oil contracts; Reliance among contractors — The Times of India.

*OMV subsidiary signs PSCs with Kurdistan, — Oil & Gas Journal.

*Hungary’s MOL signs production sharing contract in northern Iraq, — Thompson Financial News.

*Hungary MOL signs contract with Kurdistan on Akri-Bijeel exploration block, — Portfolio Financial Journal of Hungary.

*Gulf Keystone Sign Production Sharing Contract With the Kurdistan Regional Government, — Oil Voice.

*Iraq Kurds sign new oil deals, revise old contracts, — Simon Webb for Reuters.

4.5 million barrels of Kirkuk oil has been sold, for an undisclosed amount, to Spain’s Compania Espanola de Petroleos (Cepsa), Royal Dutch Shell, Repsol YPF and ExxonMobil.

Society, Security and Politics

Before Turkey decides to invade Iraq to stop the Turkish Kurd guerillas, it must face “tough political and military decisions over whether, how and when to do it,” Bay Fang reports for the Chicago Tribune.

Meanwhile, former Turkish commanders discuss costs and benefits of chasing the PKK in Iraq, Gareth Jenkins writes in the Eurasia Daily Monitor.

A major factor is Turkey’s business presence in northern Iraq, the number one investor in the area. Richard A. Oppel Jr. reports for The New York Times such investment cools the Turkey war hawks.

Iran and the U.S. are backing off their Iraq beef, Sam Dagher reports for The Christian Science Monitor.

The National Security Archive has published declassified documents and other details of the misinformation intelligence campaign in the buildup to the Iraq war.

U.S./Iran ally the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, one of the leading Shiite political/religious/militia factions in the Iraqi government, is reportedly pitching their tri-partite plan, which Abu Aardvark has on his blog, including maps and the rumor mill.

IraqSlogger reports on the increase in honor killings in northern Iraq, with nearly 600 already this year. There were 553 reported honor killings last year.

What I Saw in Fallujah, a new article in The New Statesman by Dahr Jamail, author of the new book Beyond The Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq.

500 of the 50,000 Iraqi refugees in Lebanon are in prison for immigration violation, according to the U.N. Humanitarian Affairs office.
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