Meanwhile the cabinet-based committee aims to strengthen the Ministry of Oil’s power. The cabinet committee is currently the most powerful body in Iraq when it comes to oil policy – it has given itself the responsibility of drafting oil and gas laws and forwarding them to Parliament for debate. And the contention is that the Ministry of Oil is actually just an extension of the Iraqi Cabinet.
The rationale behind reducing the Ministry’s power is to keep on decentralising power over the oil and gas sector, which would mean less interference from the federal government in related regional industry. This is something Iraqi Kurdistan is obviously already keen on, as they have their own oil and gas law already.
Additionally, although Kurdish politicians are represented on the Iraqi Cabinet, they don’t have enough seats to challenge decisions. If the Federal Oil and Gas Council becomes the most powerful body in Iraq, then the Kurdish politicians would be better represented on it and would have more real power over decisions.
Regional Power
The parliamentary committee, supported by Kurdish politicians, would like to give the oil producing areas of Iraq more power. In the draft law being advocated by the parliamentary committee, regions may grant licenses for oil exploration as well as hold licensing rounds and supervise oil companies working in their own regions. Iraqi Kurdistan is currently the only semi-autonomous oil producing region in the country.
Meanwhile the cabinet-based committee says that licensing should be done by the central government, from Baghdad. Regions can participate but they cannot hold independent licensing rounds – which is what Iraqi Kurdistan has been doing, and what they did with the Exxon contract. This section of the draft oil and gas law is crucial to the Kurdish government.
Iraqi Kurdistan should nationalize there oil like Qatar. Qatar's the richest country on earth.