Oil Crisis Not About Money ...

“The export of natural gas and oil is our legitimate right,” the Minister of Natural Resources in Iraqi Kurdistan, Ashti Hawrami, told NIQASH. “We don’t need permission from any party or any authority to export our oil. New oil fields have been discovered in Iraqi Kurdistan and soon we’ll be exporting 1 million barrels a day,” he noted.

“The region will not yield to the pressure put upon it by the central government,” agreed Mohammed Khalil, a senior member of Iraqi Kurdistan’s ruling Kurdish Democratic Party, or KDP.

Still not all of the Iraqi Kurdish politicians agree on the region’s stand – the opposition Change movement, or Gorran, was uncertain that it made sense to intimidate the central government like this.

Local legal expert, Ali al-Tamimi told NIQASH that the penalties that the central government was talking about imposing on Iraqi Kurdistan had a sound basis in local legislation.

“In all central parliamentary systems, natural resources are always managed by the federal government,” al-Tamimi said. “Which makes the export of oil without the government’s permission illegal.”

Due to the lack of new legislation on oil in Iraq, the old laws dating back to 1967 still stand, al-Tamimi added. “That means that exporting oil or investing in it without the central government’s approval is actually illegal.”

In fact, Iraqi Kurdistan, which has its own military, court system, parliament and legislation, came up with their own version of an oil and gas law some time ago. Baghdad however cannot agree on a national version of this law. Which is why the older law still stands.

“The spat is nothing new,” Shwan Zulal, a London-based expert on the Iraqi Kurdish oil industry, told Abu Dhabi-based newspaper, The National. “But the difference this time is the amount of oil that can be exported by the [Iraqi Kurdish], which could turn the tables on Baghdad in terms of economic dependence. Baghdad will have little or no leverage left if the KRG can sell oil independently.”

“This crisis is not an oil crisis – nor is it even an economic crisis,” former Iraqi oil minister, Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, told NIQASH. “It is a political crisis. And there will be a solution as soon as the Iraqi Kurdish region achieves its political ambitions.”

via Niqash - economy - iraqi kurdistan vs baghdad: oil crisis not about money, its about independence.