SULAIMANI (ESTA) — The Kurdistan Region’s Council of Ministers decided on Wednesday to send a high-level delegation to Baghdad for talks on oil.
The Council of Ministers held a meeting to discuss several issues, including energy talks with the federal government.
It decided to “send a high-level delegation to Baghdad next week to discuss with related institutions of the federal government so as to develop cooperation in the oil and energy sector on the basis of Iraqi Constitution,” the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) said in a statement.
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 Region’s massive untapped oil reserves, lucrative production-sharing contracts and safe environment has prompted international oil companies over recent years to commit to investing billions of dollars there.
But in February, Iraq’s federal court deemed an oil and gas law regulating the oil industry in Kurdistan unconstitutional and demanded that the KRG hand over their crude supplies.
Iraq’s oil minister Ihsan Abdul Jabbar said on Tuesday that the country would use new criteria to calculate Kurdistan’s share of oil exports delivered to the federal government.
“Last year there were small sums of money paid to the Region but this year there will be other criteria to calculate the Region’s share,” Abdul Jabbar said, according to the state news agency.
The federal government is “working on them,” he added.
