SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Third top energy company Halliburton has declared withdrawal from the Kurdistan Region energy sector on Thursday following the Iraqi Federal Court ruling which deemed a Kurdish oil and gas law unconstitutional, according to a company’s document on June 28.
Halliburton Company is an American multinational corporation. It has operations in more than 70 countries as well.
The company announced its obligation toward Iraq’s ruling that it will boycott oil and gas sector in the Region, according to a document directed to Iraq’s minister of oil Ihsan Abdul-Jabar on June 28 by Halliburton.
Earlier on June 15, the Iraqi ministry of oil has granted three-month permission for the international oil companies (IOCs) in the Region to halt their operations in order to execute the Federal court’s decision. Otherwise, they would be blacklisted by Iraq.
Halliburton is the third-top energy company that decides to exit the Kurdistan Region following Schlumberger and Baker Hughes oil industry companies.
Esta Media Network has learned that many other energy companies that already operate in the Kurdistan Region have faced obstacles and issues due to Iraq’s Federal Court ruling, there is a high expectation to decide and halt their operations soon and exit completely.
The Kurdistan 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 them.
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 federal court’s ruling gives the oil ministry in Baghdad the authority to manage oil and gas fields in Kurdistan. And it 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.
