SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Top U.S. energy company Schlumberger has decided to exit Iraq’s Kurdistan region following an Iraqi federal court ruling which deemed a Kurdish oil and gas law unconstitutional, the Iraqi state-news agency (INA) said on Monday citing informed sources.
The oil ministry in Baghdad has since made fresh attempts to control revenue from the Kurdistan region. In February Iraq’s federal court deemed an oil and gas law regulating the oil industry in Iraqi Kurdistan unconstitutional and demanded that Kurdish authorities hand over their crude supplies.
The Kurdish regional government (KRG) has been developing oil and gas resources independently of the federal government, and in 2007 enacted its own law that established the directives by which the region would administer these resources.
The federal court’s ruling gives the oil ministry in Baghdad the authority to manage oil and gas fields in Kurdistan.
The Federal Court’s decision challenges the contracts that the region has made with the international oil firms, however, the officials in the Kurdistan region have repeatedly refused to abide by the decision.
