Iraqi Oil Officials Visit Kurdistan in Hope to Reach a Deal

Iraq’s oil minister Abdel-Ghani and other senior officials arrived in Kurdistan on Sunday to reach an agreement with the Kurdistan Regional Government and foreign oil companies operating in the Kurdish region to resume oil production from northern fields according to Reuters.

• The delegation first met with Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani prior to a technical meeting with the Kurdish oil authorities.
• Abdel-Ghani said during a visit to Erbil that Iraq has reached an understanding with Turkey in relating to the resumption of northern oil exports through the Iraq-Turkey pipeline.
• Argus sources said in contrast: “No timeline yet. Underlying issues with IOCs remain obstacle.”
• Kurdistan24 reported that Iraqi officials had hoped the teams to reach a solution by Monday on the outstanding agreement over oil production costs with international oil companies in the region.
• Iraq’s budget law this year set the cost of extracting a barrel of oil at 6$, while the Kurdistan Region’s extraction cost is much higher than the set price due to the Region’s topography and contracts it had previously signed with international oil companies, said KRG officials.
• “The price set in the budget does not fit with the nature of our contracts,” Minister Kamal Mohammed said.