Iraqi Kurd official rejects to annul oil deals

"They are legal and constitutional contracts and they meet international standards," Barzani quoted as saying in the report. "No power in Baghdad can annul these contracts. Those who call for them to be annulled are dreamers," he added.Â

 

Iraq's cabinet agreed a draft oil law in February last year, but it has failed to get through parliament partly because of rows between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Baghdad over who will control oil reserves and contracts.Â

 

Among the disputes are deals the KRG signed with foreign energy firms on its own initiative. Baghdad has called them illegal and will not recognize them.  Â

 

Barzani brought to Baghdad what Kurdish officials had called new proposals to resolve disputes over the deadlocked national oil law, but no breakthroughs were made.

 

Talks appeared between both sides to have yielded nothing but mutual promises to keep talking about the stalled bill, the report said.

 

Barzani said both sides promised to continue talking through a new political committee adding that committee would be headed by (Prime Minister) Nuri al-Maliki.

 

In the absence of a long-delayed national oil law, Baghdad has been negotiating short-term technical service contracts with the aim of lifting output at its largest producing fields by a combined 500,000 barrels a day.

 

Five of the deals that have been under discussion are with Royal Dutch Shell, Shell in partnership with BHP Billiton, BP, Exxon Mobil, and Chevron in partnership with Total.Â

 

Officials had previously said the deals would be announced on June 30.

 

Iraq has the world's third largest oil reserves at around 115 billion barrels, although Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister DrÂBarham Salih said in April reserves could be as much as 350 billion barrels.

 

Monthly exports of 2.11 million bpd currently form the bulk of the war-torn nation’s revenues, and the Iraqi oil ministry is keen to raise capacity over the next five years to 4.5 million barrels per day.

 

Iraq declared to grant the right to extract oil in six more countries including Turkey last week. Turkey was not included in the countries qualified to prospect for oil in April. Iraq granted this permission to only 35 oil companies, of those, some were originating from the United States, Japan, South Korea and some European countries.

 

Vietnam, Pakistan, Thailand, Angola and Algeria are the other new countries that were also awarded extraction deals together with Turkey.