MNR Welcomes Oil & Gas Revenue Fund Law

The draft was then redrawn by MNR and the Council of Minister’s legal advisors, and returned to parliament in early 2013. There were initial discussions, but the draft again got stuck and the parliament finished without passing it into law.

The Council of Ministers subsequently withdrew the draft law to make it consistent with Law No 5 of 2013, and returned it to parliament in October 2014. Over the last 6 months, the new draft law was discussed and debated in detail by MPs, who voted it through last week.

Welcoming the new legislation, Natural Resources Minister Ashti Hawrami (pictured) said: “This is an important for the people of the Kurdistan Region. It is another building block in the institutional development of our oil and gas sector.

It will aid public understanding of the inflows and outflows of oil revenues, and it is in line with Kurdistan’s oil and gas law and the Iraqi Constitution.”

Minister Hawrami added that other legislation provided for in the Oil & Gas Law of 2007 remained pending in parliament, including an MNR-sponsored bill to establish the Kurdistan Exploration and Production Company (KEPCO).

Another MNR-sponsored bill relating to the official marketing of Kurdistan’s oil (KOMO) is ready to be sent to parliament soon. “We hope the Kurdistan Parliament will give priority to debating these important draft laws as soon as possible,” Minister Hawrami said.

(Source: KRG MNR)