The Major Problem Has Not Yet Been Resolved. The Oil And Gas Law Is Still Locked Up And Has Not Yet Reached Parliament, 26 OCT

 The Major Problem Has Not Yet Been Resolved. The Oil And Gas Law Is Still Locked Up And Has Not Yet Reached Parliament

Time: 10/26/2023 Read: 130 times   {Economic: Al-Furat News} Member of the Parliamentary Oil, Gas and Natural Resources Committee, Adnan Al-Jabri, confirmed today, Thursday, that the oil and gas law is still under the Cabinet’s agenda and has not yet reached the House of Representatives to vote on it.

Since the first session of the House of Representatives, in 2005, the draft oil and gas law has been stuck in drawers, as disagreements prevent its approval in its final form.

Al-Jabri told {Al-Furat News}: “The oil and gas law is still on the list of the Council of Ministers and has not yet reached Parliament, but there is follow-up from specialized committees formed by the Council of Ministers.”

He added: "When the law reaches Parliament, it will be given a first reading and then it will be discussed and studied by the committee to be presented for a second reading."

He pointed out that "it is not possible to talk about transferring the project because it has not yet reached the House of Representatives and the Cabinet committees are discussing it in the presence of the governorates responsible for writing up the draft law and voting on it in the Council of Ministers and then sending it to Parliament."

Iraq exports an average of 3.3 million barrels of crude oil per day, and black gold constitutes more than 90 percent of the state’s treasury resources.

The draft oil and gas law in Iraq available to Parliament stipulates that responsibility for managing the country's oil fields must be entrusted to a national oil company, and supervised by a federal council specialized in this subject.

Prime Minister Muhammad Shiaa Al-Sudani said, in early last August, that “the draft oil and gas law is one of the basic and important laws, representing a factor of strength and unity for Iraq, and it has been stuck for years, at a time when the country today is in dire need of its legislation and to benefit from this natural wealth, in "All fields and sectors, in addition to the contribution of the legislation to solving many outstanding problems."

He explained that "there are governorates whose wealth has not been invested to date, which is considered negative for development endeavors in all their paths," according to a report by the "INA" agency.

The dispute over the issue of oil has been a major source of tension between Baghdad and Erbil for years. Last year, the matter reached the judiciary, as Erbil believed that the central government was seeking to seize control of the region’s wealth, according to an Agence France-Presse report.

In February 2022, the Federal Court in Baghdad ordered the region to deliver the oil produced on its lands to Baghdad, and to cancel contracts the region had signed with foreign companies.

The matter reached the point where the judiciary in Baghdad invalidated contracts with many foreign companies, especially American and Canadian companies.

A temporary agreement signed between Baghdad and Erbil in early April stipulates that Kurdistan oil sales will be made through the Iraqi Oil Marketing Company “SOMO,” while revenues generated from the region’s fields will be deposited in a bank account with the Central Bank of Iraq or one of the banks approved by the Central Bank of Iraq. From: Raghad Dahham   LINK