The KRG is dealing with the oil and gas issue as a domestic one that involves Kurds alone, without Baghdad, and it holds international conferences that call for international investments. Meanwhile, it is concluding contracts with companies without Baghdad. The Kurdistan-Iraq Oil & Gas Conference took place Dec. 5-7 in London under the auspices of Iraqi Kurdistan and with the participation of Kurdish officials including Minister of Natural Resources Ashti Hawrami and a large number of representatives of international oil companies. Organizers say the conference was the largest international meeting ever held regarding Iraqi Kurdistan's oil and gas sector.
Meanwhile, Turkey is taking advantage of its strategic relationship with the KDP and has offered the possibility of exporting Iraqi oil from the Kurdistan Region through Turkey without agreements between Baghdad and Erbil. Article 111 of the Iraqi Constitution affirms that “oil and gas are owned by all the people of Iraq in all the regions and governorates.”
Iraq's 2017 budget, which was adopted Dec. 7, obliges Iraqi Kurdistan to export 550,000 barrels per day total from its oil fields, including the oil of Kirkuk province, exclusively through the transnational State Oil Marketing Organization. The revenues, according to the budget, should go to the federal public treasury.
However, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Jan. 3 accused the KRG of exporting larger oil quantities via Turkey without the knowledge of Baghdad, which led Iraq to violate its OPEC obligations to cut total output by 200,000 barrels per day. During the month of November alone, the KRG exported 587,646 barrels per day through Turkey without any coordination with Baghdad, Abadi said.
The strategic relationship between Turkey and Barzani's KDP is a subject for debate among the anti-Barzani parties, especially the PUK and the Movement for Change (Gorran), whose parliamentarian Serwa Abdul Wahid called Sept. 25 on the KRG to return to Iraq instead of resorting to Turkey, adding that “the KRG had previously tried Turkey but reaped no benefit.”
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