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Draft budget gives less money for Kurdish contractors

In its new draft budget, the federal Cabinet has allocated just $625 million in advance payments for KRG exports – well short of Kurdish expectations.
Pumps at a well at the Tawke oil field in Iraqi Kurdistan operated by Norway's DNO. (SEBASTIAN MEYER/Metrography/Iraq Oil Report)

ERBIL - The tenuous oil export agreement between Baghdad and the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region has hit another roadblock, as the two sides wrangle over how to incorporate their cooperation in the 2013 budget law.

The draft budget passed by the Cabinet on Oct. 23 allocates only 750 billion Iraqi dinars ($625 million) in advance payments to Kurdistan's oil contractors, according to both a Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) official and a member of the Parliament's oil and gas committee, who have reviewed the legislation. That number falls well short of the more than 4 trillion dinars ($3.3 billion) the KRG had been expecting, the KRG official said.

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