BILLIONS OF OIL REVENUES GOT LOST / BAGHDAD vs. ERBIL

Shafaaq com 2.2.2013 – Hewlêr, Kurdistan region ‘Iraq’:  – Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) held on Saturday, the federal Iraqi government the responsibility of “losing of billions of dollars” due to the stop of exporting oil from fields in the region after the “failure” of Baghdad to pay the second installment of receivables that it has “pledged” to pay to foreign companies operating in Kurdistan.

The spokesman of KRG, Safeen Dizayee said in a press statement that “the inability of the provincial government to convince the foreign companies operating in Kurdistan fields to continue their extractive and marketing activities comes because of not being paid their dues by the federal government so far.” Dizayee confirmed that “the federal government has retreated from its commitment to an agreement held between us and them during September of last year,” adding, “We have expressed our readiness to pump the agreed quantities which is 175 thousand barrels of oil per day through the Iraqi transporting pipes to Turkey.”

   “We have committed to product and export that amount and we were planning to reach the level of 200 thousand barrels to increase the resources of the Iraqi treasury,” explaining that “the federal government has pledged under the agreement to pay all dues on the work of foreign companies operating in Kurdistan amounting to a billion dollar.”

Dizayee pointed that “any amount of oil extracted from Kurdistan fields and exported to overseas , has been deposited in the amounts of the central government treasury,” noting that “the export process is stopped now due to the negative attitude of the Federal Government, when the government pledges its commitment then there would be no justification to stop pumping oil again. “

The Iraqi Oil Ministry has directed a formal letter to the General Secretariat of the Iraqi Council of Ministers pointing out that due to KRG not committing to its commitment to pump agreed quantities of oil, the loss was an estimated four billion and four hundred million dollars that damaged the Iraqi state treasury in 2012; This amount is likely to rise in 2013 to nine billion dollars if KRG continues to halt its oil exports. Exxon Mobil and Iraqi Kurdistan officials visited on Friday an oil exploration block caught in a dispute between Baghdad’s central government and the autonomous Kurdish region, and discussed building a camp there, a local official and sources say.