Iraq’s government insists it alone has the sole authority to export crude oil and sign deals, but Kurdistan says the constitution allows it to agree to contracts and ship oil independently of Baghdad. Photo: AFP
Baghdad: ,Iraq plans tough measures against the country’s Kurdistan region and foreign oil companies working there to stop “illegal” crude exports in an escalation of its standoff with the autonomous enclave, the oil minister said in an interview on Tuesday.
Oil exports and contracts are at the heart of a wider dispute over territory, oilfields and political autonomy between Baghdad’s Arab-led government and Kurdistan, where ethnic Kurds run their own regional administration.
Abdul Kareem Luaibi said Baghdad intends to sue Genel Energy the first company to export oil directly from Kurdistan and may slash the government’s allocated budget to the region unless it halts what he rejected as smuggling.
Speaking from his office in the oil ministry in Baghdad, Luaibi said it was “high time” for the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to stop “this very dangerous behaviour”.
Luaibi also revealed a preliminary agreement with oil major BP to revive the giant but ageing northern Kirkuk oil field, which apart from being at the centre of a feud between Kurdistan and Iraq is suffering massive output declines.
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