PM Barzani: Baghdad-BP deal must include Kurdistan
Shafaq News/ Kurdistan Prime Minister Masrour Barzani emphasized, on Friday, the necessity for the Baghdad-BP agreement to develop the oil fields in Kirkuk to include the Kurdistan Region.
“It is a potential dispute with the federal Iraqi government”, Barzani described the issue in an interview with Reuters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Control over oil and gas fields has long been a source of tension between Baghdad and Kurdistan, with the oil-rich Kirkuk region at the heart of the conflict.
Barzani clarified that "the area Baghdad is discussing with BP is disputed," and according to the constitution, decisions on disputed areas cannot be made by Erbil or Baghdad alone.
He added, "We are not opposed to the development of the fields in general, but we disagree with the mechanism," and suggested that "it requires a trilateral meeting for coordination."
Reuters cited an informed source as saying that the Kurdistan Region "can engage in negotiations by meeting separately with BP officials, and is likely to leverage its relations with the US government to push both the Iraqi government and BP to include them."
Iraq and BP are expected to sign a multi-billion-dollar agreement regarding four oil fields in Kirkuk by the first week of February.
Barzani noted, "Practically, I don't see that we have the ability to stop the deal," but described it as "unconstitutional."
Iraqi Oil Minister Hayan Abdul-Ghani told Reuters last week that the size of the deal would surpass the 2023 Total Energies agreement in Basra, which was valued at around $27 billion.
Baghdad and BP have already signed a preliminary agreement to assess the potential redevelopment of the Kirkuk oil fields.
BP was part of a consortium of companies that explored oil in Kirkuk in the 1920s and estimated that the region contains around nine billion barrels of extractable oil. It holds a 50% stake in a joint venture that operates the giant Rumaila oil field in southern Iraq, where the company has been active for nearly a century.
