Under Article 141, all such contracts entered into by Kurdistan since 1992 are considered valid in accordance with their terms.
Under the Constitution, all non-producing fields (at the time of its writing) fall under the sole power of the regions and governorates and therefore contracts were signed between the KRG and the IOCs.
Neither the federal government nor the federal oil minister is a party to these contracts, so the Minister has no jurisdiction to take any legal action against PSC holders.
The Production Sharing Contracts in the Kurdistan Region have been a great success for Iraq. They have meant that an estimated 45 billion barrels of oil and 3-6 tcm of gas can be added to Iraq’s total reserve figures.
KIRKUK LICENSES
The alleged agreement with BP on a plan to reverse the decline of oilfields of Kirkuk is another unconstitutional and illegal move announced by the minister. According to Article 112 of the Constitution:
"The federal government, with the producing governorates and regional governments, shall undertake the management of oil and gas extracted from present fields, provided that it distributes its revenues in a fair manner… and this shall be regulated by a law."
The term “present fields” refers to fields already under production at the date of the Constitution (October 2005). Kirkuk is one such field.
Very well written! And top of all above, SOMO has collected the moneys for exporting all oil including the one from KRG territory. Unilateraly, SOMO and alikes do not honor the contracts with the OIC's operating in Kurdistan, but retain the money. Can you understand that many IOC's are alarmed and are calling this behavior for theft or even harder words?
The harsh language used by the Oil ministers in Baghdad may scare small oil companies and now with the consolidation of IOC's in Kurdistan, there is no way that Gazprom, Exxon and alikes will fell down for the rod of Baghdad.
Have you not learnt that capitalism and IOC's have a very good and large memory? They will never forget nor forgive such behavior.