The announcement appeared to take the national government by surprise, with a ministry spokesman saying the Kurds had not yet received approval to unilaterally begin exports. An “export license has not yet been granted, and is still under discussion,” Assem Jihad said in a phone interview. “Only a technical agreement has been reached on how to link these two fields to the Iraqi strategical export pipeline.”
The distribution of Iraq’s vast oil reserves has been a major sticking point in the ratification of a national hydrocarbons law, which has been stalled in parliament since February, 2007. The Kurds, whose territory includes vast reserves, argue the Iraqi constitution gives them the right to unilaterally negotiate and sign oil deals, without consulting with the central government in Baghdad. Since the US-led invasion, they have signed nearly two dozen production-sharing contracts with international oil companies. However, the oil ministry considers these agreements illegal, and has threatened to exclude and blacklist companies that sign deals with the Kurds.
To ease the dispute, Baghdad has proposed granting export licenses relating to only four deals struck before February, 2007. The Kurds, however, have yet to agree to this compromise. The government’s relatively hard-line stance stems from concerns that affording the Kurds too much independence in the oil sector could further stoke unrest among the Sunni Muslim population in resource-poor central Iraq.
The Kurdish announcement came two days after Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani and the Kurds agreed to link the Tawke and Taq Taq oilfields to the main export pipeline in the north that transports crude to Ceyhan. Tawke is being developed independent Norwegian oil company DNO, while Turkey’s Genel Enerji and Canada’s Addax Petroleum Corp are jointly operating Taq Taq.