By John Lee. The Chief Executive of Italian oil and gas group Eni says the company does not plan to compromise its business in Iraq by making energy deals with Kurdistan. Paolo Scaroni (pictured) said that one of the conditions for developing the Zubair field was that there could be no deals with local governments […]
By John Lee. Kurdistan's Minister for Natural Resources, Ashti Hawrami (pictured), has hit back at reports that the US has warned oil companies not to sign any oil deals with Kurdistan without Baghdad's approval or Baghdad may take legal action against them. According to AKnews, Hawrami described the media reports quoting Nuland as "baseless ….These […]
By John Lee. Genel Energy has increased its commitment to oil exploration in Iraqi Kurdistan with the announcement that it has agreed to acquire an additional 26 per cent interest in the Miran exploration block from Heritage Oil. The announcement comes just a day after the Kurdistan Regional Government's Oil and Gas Council approved the […]
By John Lee. At the US State Department's Daily Press Briefing on Monday, Spokesperson Victoria Nuland was asked to clarify the US Government's official position on oil contracts in Iraqi Kurdistan. "Our position on this has not changed", she said. "We’ve spoken about it many times here. We speak about it in Iraq. With regard […]
By Zanko Ahmad. This article was originally published by Niqash. Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News. Two families in Iraqi Kurdistan seem to reserve all the top political jobs for relatives. Recently the ‘crown princes’ both got new, high level jobs. The […]
By John Lee. The Chinese Ambassador to Iraq, Mr Ni Jian, met with Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani yesterday to explore ways of strengthening ties with the Kurdistan Region. Ambassador Jian presented his credentials to the Iraqi President last year November, and this is his first visit to Kurdistan. In his meeting with Prime Minister Barzani, […]
By John Lee. The Kurdistan Regional Government Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Dr Ali Saeed, last week met with British ministers and universities to deepen and expand cooperation in the higher education and scientific research sectors. Minister Saeed led a delegation from the Kurdistan Region’s Council of Ministers and Ministry of Higher Education, […]
By John Lee. Professor Serwan Baban, the Kurdistan Regional Government's Minister of Agriculture and Water Resources, this week in London met Lord Green, Minister of State for Trade and Investment with officials from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. He also met other government officials in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and thanked them for […]
By John Lee. The Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Nechirvan Barzani (pictured), has said that the policy of his government is to achieve self-sufficiency in fuel and electricity generation. He said that the Baghdad government is cutting Kurdistan's share from the fuel produced at the Iraqi refineries. "Therefore, in these two fields […]
Just days after agreeing to re-start oil exports from the Kurdistan region, Ashti Hawrami (pictured), the KRG's Minister of Natural Resources, said the region would halt oil exports at the end of the month if Baghdad does not make all outstanding payments to companies working in the oil sector in the region by that time. […]
By John Lee. The KRG is to form a committee to lay down the mechanism for foreign workers to apply for work in the Kurdistan Region, according to AKnews. Abbas Akram, press secretary for Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, said the committee is intended to help to secure the rights of the foreign workers […]
By John Lee. Oil exports from the Kurdistan Region will resume in the first week of August, the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) has announced, adding that the decision was a confidence-building measure aimed at solving once and for all the ongoing oil and gas issues in Iraq. The MNR said that despite initial reluctance […]
