Thread: Kurdistan Economy

The demographic change in Kirkuk charge exchanged between the warring parties

Head of the Committee of the Regions MP Hashem al-Tai, "The demographic change in Kirkuk charge exchanged between the parties to the conflict, adding that the UN proposal in this regard has freed the views and angered the other bodies."

The Arabs and Turkmen in Kirkuk, demanding the adoption of the electoral register for 2004, while Kurds are demanding the adoption of the population increases post that date to participate in the elections.

He said al-Tai told the independent press (Iba), "said the proposal by the United Nations to adopt the electoral register for the current year for the next election is not put forward internationalist and below the level of acceptance was not distinctive or neutral."

The Kurds agreed to the proposal of the United Nations, while the Turkmen and the Arabs rejected it because of the realism of this proposed large increases that have occurred in the province which was considered by the United Nations increases abnormally.

He said al-Tai "the need to be aware that speaking their own tongue and problems of the growth of democracy around the world and what happened to the solutions that have pictures of these solutions, pointing either to be put in this form is proposed for a particular class at the expense of another."

Is noteworthy that the United Nations presented a proposal from among many proposals to solve the Kirkuk crisis in order to ratify the proposed amendments to the electoral law.

http://www.ipairaq.com/index.php?nam...itics&id=17154

Committee of Finance of Iraq: Kurdistan will get 17% of the funds frozen in the event of the launch

Erbil (Network News for this day) - The members of the Committee of Finance of Iraq that in the event of release of funds frozen Iraqi Kurdistan, the territory will get 17% of the total money.

The members of the Committee of Finance of Iraq that Iraq was able to recover the money frozen in foreign banks as it exits from Chapter VII of the United Nations, and that money would be returned to the state treasury and the central province of Kurdistan will get a 17% share of the total money in the event of launch.

The news agency (AKnews) Thanks for Ismail, Vice-Chairman of the Finance Committee as saying that "Iraq will not be able to recover the money frozen without exit from Chapter VII of the United Nations."

Sami with the other Vice-Atrushi of the Finance Committee that "the frozen funds, funds that will become very huge part of the overall budget of the country and will be subject to the annual debate and accordingly, the province will receive 17% of those funds."

The United Nations has imposed several sanctions on Iraq, called Chapter VII of the invasion of Kuwait.

http://translate.googleusercontent.c...oVK6RRE_IABulg

US to give more importance to Kirkuk: Escobar

Speaking in an interview about the latest political, security and economic developments facing Kirkuk province, Gabriel Escobar US Counsel in Kirkuk stated that Kirkuk has a suitable security condition, unlike the false claims made by some about the city.

What makes the city’s condition different from the situation of most of the world’s areas is the existence of firm relation among the city’s constituents, he said. “This strong relation encourages the United States to give more importance to Kirkuk with the intent of improving these relations.”

The economic dimension of Kirkuk which has been neglected up to now should be restored, said US Counsel in Kirkuk.

http://pukmedia.com/english/index.ph...14254&Itemid=1

President of Kurdistan parliament refuses to exclude any province from contesting elections

Speaker of the Parliament refused to Kurdistan region of Iraq, Kamal Kirkuki to exclude any province from contesting the next parliamentary elections especially Kirkuk, calling for the holding of elections in Iraq at one time.

Kirkuki said during his meeting with the President of the Electoral Commission for elections Faraj al-Haidari said elections must be held simultaneously with the participation of all Iraqis Bmkunathm all, explaining that he is not permitted to exclude any region or province, and given special status, especially Kirkuk.

He Kirkuki elections to be held on time in all the governorates and the shared commitment to the democratic process and accepting the other to create an atmosphere free to voters, pointing out that the success of the elections is a success for all the components of Iraq.

http://www.radiodijla.com/cgi-bin/ne...?id=2009-11-02

United Nations provides a new proposal to resolve the Kirkuk Crisis

The United Nations proposal for a new Council of Representatives to resolve the crisis of Kirkuk province on the next election.

The Kurdistan Alliance MP in the House of Representatives Hassan Othman said the new proposal currently being discussed between the Chairman of the House of Representatives and the representative of Iyad Samarrai, secretary-general of the United Nations in Iraq Wade Melkert.

Othman added that this proposal will be presented to parliamentary blocs in the House for debate before giving an opinion without referring to the details of the proposed Bank.

http://www.radiodijla.com/cgi-bin/ne...?id=2009-11-02

Kurds’ Boom in North Iraq Imperiled by Oil Dispute With Baghdad

Outside a newly built go-kart racetrack in Erbil, the capital of Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, a poster urges would-be drivers to “feed the need for speed.”

Kurds are taking that advice to heart, racing ahead of the rest of the country in luring oil investment and rebuilding after decades of war and sanctions. They have hit a speed bump: a four-month standoff with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki over how to share the country’s oil resources and where to draw internal boundaries. The dispute, which led al-Maliki to refuse payments to oil companies hired by the Kurds, may threaten the boom that has given Erbil new homes, conference centers and underground fiber- optic cables. It may also jeopardize Iraq’s stability as it approaches March 7 elections and the pullout of U.S. troops.

The tension “could potentially escalate into live fire” if al-Maliki’s government tries to weaken Kurdish self-rule, said David L. Phillips, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a research institute in Washington. “Sectarian violence will never break Iraq but ethnic conflict can.”

Since the U.S. ousted dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003, the north has stayed largely free of the violence between Sunni and Shia Muslims in Arab provinces that has killed about 100,000 Iraqis, according to the Web site Iraq Body Count. That stability strengthened the hand of Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani and helped attract investors.

Early Contracts

The Kurdish oil ministry started awarding contracts to companies such as Calgary, Canada-based Addax Petroleum Corp., later acquired by China Petrochemical Corp., and Oslo-based DNO International ASA as early as 2002 -- the year before Hussein’s fall. Now, those companies aren’t getting paid because of the dispute with Baghdad.

Al-Maliki, whose central government controls export pipelines and collects all oil revenue, has refused to turn over money pledged by the Kurds to their producers, saying the Kurdish government had no right to sign its own contracts. The Kurds responded by halting exports in October. DNO and the other producers are supplying the domestic market. Not repaying the Kurds is “unfair and unreasonable and illogical,” and hurts the whole of Iraq by cutting oil sales, said Falah Mustafa Bakir, head of the Kurdish government’s foreign affairs department.

Oil Production

Oil output in Kurdistan, which the local authorities say could soar to 450,000 barrels a day by the end of this year, has slumped to 20,000 barrels instead, from a peak of 100,000 last year. Nationwide, Iraq produces about 2.4 million barrels a day. A dispute over Kurdish borders adds to friction between Barzani and the Baghdad government. Barzani says Kirkuk, a province southeast of Erbil that produces about one-quarter of Iraq’s oil, should be part of Kurdistan because it is majority- Kurdish in population. A referendum on that question has been delayed for two years and, meantime, Barzani and al-Maliki have bolstered their military forces there. Kirkuk was omitted from the 15 oilfields offered by al-Maliki to investors last month.

“If you don’t have an agreement between Erbil and Baghdad then all these oil and gas fields can’t be developed,” said Gareth Stansfield, an analyst at the Chatham House research center in London. “They’ve got each other by the throat and that’s what makes it so dangerous.”

‘Lots of Industry’

Those dangers don’t overshadow the current boom for those in the Kurdish region who recall Hussein’s chemical attacks in the late 1980s and the decade of poverty and international sanctions that followed.

“A few years ago there was no money, no electricity, no banks,” said Dara Jalil Khayat, head of the Erbil Chamber of Commerce. “Now we have lots of industry and we’re working on setting up a stock exchange.”

In the 1990s, when most Iraqi Kurds were living on United Nations handouts in an enclave protected by U.K. and U.S. warplanes, Baz Karim turned the offices of his family marble business into distribution posts for food and fuel. Now Karim’s Kar Group has about $1 billion in energy and building contracts, and is mulling a stock market listing -- “maybe in two or three years, maybe in London,” Karim said at Kar’s office, a villa in Erbil’s suburbs. On his desk is a model of its successor, a 13-story skyscraper being built in Erbil. Kar is extracting oil from the Khurmala field west of Erbil. Last year it opened a refinery that Karim says will produce 75,000 barrels a day by year-end for Erbil’s growing fleet of private cars.

Tomato Paste

Investors from outside Iraq are seeking to profit in Kurdistan. Andrew Eberhart’s Marshall Fund, a U.S.-based private equity firm, runs a tomato-paste plant near Erbil that it took over from the UN food program.

Eberhart, a former U.S. Army officer and later a banker at New York-based Citigroup Inc., got interested after a Defense Department-sponsored trip to Iraq in 2007. He’s now looking at such opportunities as fast-food franchises and the dairy industry.

“The level of institutional interest in the U.S. and the U.K. is picking up,” Eberhart said. “There’s plenty of really good opportunities there right now.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=avT4k5gqb9qA

Iraq Kurds want to resolve oil row, resume exports

The government of Iraqi Kurdistan said on Sunday it wanted to reach an amicable agreement with the Baghdad government over the sharing of oil revenue so it could resume exporting crude.

In a statement responding to a call from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to settle a dispute between Iraq's Arabs and Kurds over the country's oil wealth, the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) said it was considering publishing contracts it has signed with foreign oil companies.

"The KRG is willing to enter a serious dialogue about the subject, and we are willing completely and in the interest of the Iraqi people to renew exports of crude oil from KRG fields at a level of no less than 100,000 barrels per day," it said.

The statement added that the Kurdish regional authorities hoped to boost output to 200,000 barrels per day this year and attain an output capacity of 1 million bpd within the next four years.

Iraq's Kurdish region is believed to be rich with oil reserves but development has been stalled by disagreement between the Arab-led government in Baghdad and the semi-autonomous Kurdish authorities over revenue. The KRG has signed production sharing agreements with a string of foreign companies, including Norway's DNO and Turkey's Genel Enerji, but Iraq's Oil Ministry considers those deals illegal.

"In order to show our seriousness about the subject, we are contemplating publishing the ratified contracts with DNO and Genel," the KRG said.

Prime Minister Maliki on Jan. 3 called for an end to the row over oil after he met with new KRG Prime Minister Barham Salih. The Iraqi government briefly allowed the KRG to start exporting oil from two fields, Taq Taq and Tawke, over the summer but its refusal to pay the private firms running the oilfield projects led to the suspension of the exports.

The dispute over oil is part of a larger stand-off between Baghdad and the Kurdish region over disputed territories in Iraq's north that U.S. military officials fear could one day lead to Iraq's next broad conflict. At the heart of the dispute lies the city of Kirkuk, which sits over a vast sea of oil and is claimed by the Kurds as their ancestral capital. The city's Arab and Turkmen population fiercely oppose Kurdish aspirations to have Kirkuk wrapped into their northern enclave, which has enjoyed virtual independence since after the 1991 Gulf War. Salih was Maliki's deputy prime minister before taking up the KRG position. Analysts had predicted that his knowledge of national politics, diplomatic skills and personal connections might lead to a reduction in tensions between the two sides.

The federal government's hand has been strengthened recently against the Kurds by the success the Oil Ministry has had in securing agreements with international oil companies to develop oilfields south of the KRG border. If successful, those deals could boost Iraqi national output to 12 million bpd, rivalling top producer Saudi Arabia, from 2.5 million bpd now, making Kurdish crude exports less important for a government that relies almost entirely on oil for revenue.

http://www.forexyard.com/en/news/Ira...-01-17T174800Z

DNO shares jump on Kurd-Baghdad oil deal hopes

Shares in Norwegian oil and gas producer DNO rose as much as 20 percent on Monday on signs of progress in talks over a long-awaited Iraqi oil export deal between Baghdad and Iraq's Kurdish regional government.

DNO produces oil in the Kurdish region in Northern Iraq and has signed contracts with the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). But the continued lack of agreement between the KRG and Baghdad over revenue sharing has forced DNO to stop exporting its crude, which it now sells for less on local Iraqi markets.

Shares in DNO were up 19.4 percent at 6.36 crowns at 0933 GMT after a brief suspension was lifted by the Oslo bourse.

On Sunday, the KRG said it was "willing to enter a serious dialogue" with Baghdad and that to demonstrate its transparency, it might publish the contracts it signed with foreign oil companies operating in Kurdistan.

DNO said on Monday its contract with the KRG has been published and that it could not comment on the matter further, but some analysts saw the developments in Iraq as positive.

"This could be the breakthrough," said Arctic Securities analyst Trond Omdal. "The consensus has been that they (Iraqis) would have waited (with the oil exporting deal) until after the election. There is still uncertainty about what the new regime will look like, but these developments are positive."

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKLD***H0PY20100118

Kurdistan Region President to visit Washington

The President of Kurdistan Region Masoud Barzani will visit the United States of America at the invitation of President Barack Obama.

In a press statement, the Head of Kurdistan Region Presidency Divan Dr. Fuad Husain said: “President Barzani will visit Washington at the invitation of the American President and will meet with the officials there.”

“Several issues that concern both sides will be discussed in the visit in addition to the upcoming Iraqi elections and enhancing the bilateral ties”, Husain added.

http://pukmedia.com/english/index.ph...15663&Itemid=1

KRG statement on Kurdistan Region oil contracts and revenues
Statement by Dr Ashti Hawrami
Minister for Natural Resources
Kurdistan Regional Government
17 January 2010

After talks with the Kurdistan Region’s Prime Minister Dr Barham Salih, Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on 3rd January said in a statement to the press, “It is time to look at this file and settle it with flexibility and realism, in order to preserve the rights and interests in these contracts.”

He added, “The revenue will be part of the national revenue that is distributed equally to all Iraqis”.

In response to this statement, we believe it is necessary to explain the following:

1. We reiterate our already publicly announced position: We believe that the oil revenue of the Kurdistan Region is for all of the Iraqi people, in the same way as all of Iraq’s other oil revenues, which should be distributed throughout Iraq fairly and in accordance with a revenue sharing law to be enacted as required by the Constitution. Therefore we agree with the Federal Prime Minister’s statement.

2. We note that the Federal Prime Minister assured us all that he wishes to look again at the oil contracts with the Kurdistan Region in order to solve the issue. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is ready to start a serious dialogue regarding this matter, and we are also ready to immediately restart the process of oil exports from the Kurdistan Region’s fields at a rate of no less than 100,000 barrels per day, and in the interests of all the Iraqi people. We will also work to rapidly increase production to more than 200,000 barrels per day this year.

3. Although there are different views on the level of the profit share to be allocated to the contractors, the reality obliges us all to agree on the resumption of the oil export and to allocate a certain percentage of the revenue from the exported oil to the concerned contracted companies, to cover their actual costs. This will create a suitable and a positive atmosphere to enable us to start, as soon as possible, a dialogue about all other suspended issues – particularly to open the door for everyone to understand the framework of the contracts that the KRG has signed. In particular we can then address the amount profit that is granted to the contracted companies. This should be viewed in comparison with what is an acceptable standard in the international oil industry regarding oil exploration and production. To demonstrate the extent of our resolve and readiness, we are publishing here the contracts of the companies DNO and Genel, to facilitate discussions and to show the transparent nature of these contracts and their economic benefits for everyone in Iraq.

4. We do not object to offering the oil produced in the Kurdistan Region by the contracted companies to SOMO (State Oil Marketing Organisation of Iraq), assuming that SOMO then allocates part of the Region’s oil revenue either to the KRG to compensate the companies involved, or for SOMO to directly compensate the agreed amounts to the companies involved, provided that such payments do not exceed the amounts that these companies have spent, and as outlined in the table below. The balance of the derived oil revenue should then be deposited in the Federal Government’s bank account.

5. The current relevant producing companies include DNO and Genel. We are ready to form a financial committee composed of representatives from the Federal Government’s and the Kurdistan Region’s ministries of finance, along with representatives from the aforementioned companies, to verify and confirm the exact amounts of money that these companies have invested so far.

6. For the sake of expediting this process, we believe it is also necessary to create another committee composed of representatives of the KRG Ministry of Natural Resources, SOMO, DNO, and Genel, to confirm the amount of oil produced and exported by these companies, and to confirm the revenue that SOMO receives from the sale of the oil produced and exported by them, to ensure that an accurate and a fair compensation is made to them.

7. The table and figures explain the following:

a. Although the initial oil production will begin with 100,000 barrels per day, it will increase gradually and continuously to 1,000,000 barrels per day within five years from now.

b. The anticipated revenue that the Federal Government will receive from the oil production of the Kurdistan Region during the coming five years from 2010 to 2014 will be: $2.75 billion (2010), $8.23 billion (2011), $12.45 billion (2012), $18.27 billion (2013), and $25.62 billion (2014). The total cost compensation of the companies contracted in the Region for the same period will be: $1.4 billion (2010), $0.9 billion (2011), $1.05 (2012), $1.2 (2013), and $1.4 (2014). This illustrates that the Federal Government (Ministry of Finance) will receive in total more than $67 billion as net revenue from the oil produced by companies contracted in the Region in the coming five years. In return, less than $6 billion in costs will be paid to these companies.

c. By 2015 the total revenue will be more than $27 billion per year, with a cost compensation of $1.5 billion per year to the companies involved.

Finally, oil revenue coming from the Kurdistan Region will lead to the expanded economic development of Iraq in general, and it will increase the prosperity of all the Iraqi people. This is due to the rightful participation of the Region in this vital oil sector, and for the benefit of all constituencies of the people of Iraq. Therefore we call upon the Federal Government to engage in a serious dialogue with the KRG to reach a comprehensive agreement on this matter in the interests of Iraq as a whole.

http://pukmedia.com/english/index.ph...15669&Itemid=1