(Iraqi is going to play it close on this one. Can the get this passed on time for the early 2025 target for the reinstatement? Will the let the reinstatement go anyhow?)
Talk returns about the oil and gas bill that has been absent for two decades due to political differences, despite the fact that it represents the only solution to all the problems of the center and the region.
MP Ali Al-Mashkoor, a member of the Parliamentary Oil and Gas Committee, attributed the delay in approving the Oil and Gas Law to points of contention behind which the Kurdistan Region of Iraq stands. It is noteworthy that the Oil and Gas Law has undergone 11 amendments and has never reached Parliament.
Al-Mashkoor said in a press statement, “The law has been in place since 2008 and was sent to the House of Representatives to regulate the financial and oil matters of the producing provinces,” explaining that “this law cannot be passed except with political approvals from the blocs within Parliament.”
He added, “The reason for the suspension of this law in the corridors of the House of Representatives is the failure to send its latest updates, as there are clear points of disagreement with the region,” indicating that “the dialogues with the region resulted in reducing these articles from 9 to 7 points.”
He explained that “dialogues are still ongoing between the federal government and the region in order to resolve these points,” noting that “until now we have not reached solutions that can be accepted by both parties.”
Yesterday, Wednesday, Prime Minister Mohammed Al-Sudani visited the Kurdistan Region of Iraq to discuss a number of important files, including the oil and gas law.
Iraq’s oil and gas law, which has been awaiting legislation since 2005, stipulates that responsibility for managing the country’s oil fields should be vested in a national oil company, overseen by a federal council specializing in this matter.
The Kurdistan Oil Law stipulates that the Ministry of Oil in the region or whoever it authorizes shall assume responsibility for organizing and supervising oil operations as well as all activities related to them, including marketing oil, as well as negotiating and concluding agreements and implementing all licenses, including oil contracts concluded by the regional government. The Iraqi government also has the right to participate in the management of fields discovered before 2005, but fields discovered after that are subject to the regional government.
On February 21, the Federal Supreme Court ruled that the federal government would be responsible for paying the salaries of Erbil government civil servants, with the amount paid at source in Baghdad deducted from the regional government’s share, and the KRG must submit monthly accounts detailing each salary paid. This is effectively a stricter reset of the original “budget payments for oil revenues” deal agreed between the KRG and the federal government in November 2014.
There are no government statistics on oil exported from the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, but the Iraqi Ministry of Oil published an analysis in May 2023, saying the regional government had committed “legal and procedural violations” in selling oil that caused significant losses.
The financial returns of the regional government constitute no more than 80 percent on average after deducting the production costs (the cost of producing a barrel of oil), while the financial returns of the first and second licensing rounds (held by Baghdad) constitute from 94.5 percent to 96.5 percent, and the cost of production is equivalent to (4) times the production costs in the licensing rounds of the federal Ministry of Oil, according to the Ministry of Oil.
Iraq exports an average of 3.3 million barrels of crude oil per day, and black gold constitutes more than 90 percent of the Iraqi treasury’s resources.
In August 2023, the government formed a committee to draft the oil and gas law and present it to the government for voting and try to pass it in the House of Representatives. The committee included the Minister of Oil, the Minister of Natural Resources in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, the Director General of SOMO, and senior staff in the Federal Ministry of Oil, in addition to the producing governorates such as Basra, Dhi Qar, Maysan, and Kirkuk.
For years, the points of contention between Baghdad and Erbil have not been resolved, but Al-Sudani recently revealed that an agreement had been reached with Erbil on these points, in addition to including in his ministerial program the resolution of these items, most notably the enactment of the Oil and Gas Law and the implementation of Article 140 regarding the disputed areas.
In mid-February 2022, the Federal Court issued a decision declaring the oil and gas law in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq unconstitutional, and prevented it from exporting oil for its own benefit, with the export to be through Baghdad exclusively, based on a lawsuit filed by the Federal Ministry of Oil.
(As I have said many times when they decide to settle Article 140 issues then also the Oil and Gas law will come into place too. The these two issues are connected. The census we also learn about today is all part of settling these issues. Remember the Iraqi constitution must be fully implemented in order to see the reinstatement of the dinar. These are the last and most important issues still remaining.)
