| Submit your comments on this article |
| Iraq |
| New oil contracts approved for global firms in Kurdistan |
| 2007-11-09 |
| (AKI) - The regional government of Kurdistan in Iraq has signed a number of multimillion dollar agreements with international companies for oil exploration and development, despite opposition from Baghdad. In a media statement released on an official website, the Kurdish government's minister of natural resources, Ashti Hawrami, said: "Erbil had signed seven new oil contracts with several international companies, bringing to 20 the total number of accords to now." "With these new contracts, the regional government can develop a production capacity of a million barrels a day within the next five years," the statement said. The minister said: "There are many requests from international oil companies that want to add to their drilling development in Kurdistan and we are happy to satisfy these requests. " Among the oil companies that have won these new contracts are the European company Aktiengesellschaft that operates in the province of Erbil, Kalegran Limited and Reliance Energy Limited, which work in Dahuk as well as another company that was not named in the statement. "New oil discoveries under these contracts will bring large amounts of new revenues for sharing throughout Iraq, and locally refined petroleum products will help the people of the Kurdistan Region and the whole of Iraq, who now suffer from costly black market imports," the minister said. "It will spell the beginning of the end of the wasteful fuel subsidies of the federal government, and the corruption and crime that goes with them." |
| Posted by:Fred |