Parliamentary Finance Committee sets a “national path” to end oil disputes between Baghdad and Erbil
Parliamentary Finance Committee sets a “national path” to end oil disputes between Baghdad and Erbil
2024-12-01 05:30
Shafaq News/ The head of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, Atwan Al-Atwani, announced on Sunday the determination of a “national path” to resolve the oil disputes between Baghdad and Erbil, noting that the committee is preparing a report on amending one of the articles in the General Budget Law.
A statement by the committee received by Shafaq News Agency stated that Al-Atwani chaired an expanded meeting with the senior staff of the Ministry of Oil, in the presence of the committee members and a number of members of the Oil, Gas and Natural Resources Committee. The meeting discussed the files of managing the country’s oil wealth and the future of oil prices, as the country’s budget is formed by 90% of these revenues.
According to the statement, the meeting discussed developments in resolving outstanding issues with the Kurdistan Region regarding resolving disputes over calculating production costs and adapting foreign companies’ contracts to the Iraqi constitution, with the aim of resuming exports via the Turkish Ceyhan pipeline.
Al-Atwani pointed out that his committee is in the process of preparing its report on amending Article 12 of the General Budget Law, and submitting it to the House of Representatives for the second reading.
He stressed that the Finance Committee held a series of continuous meetings with officials in the federal government and the regional government, and “defined a national path to find a radical solution to this problem on a constitutional and legal basis and in a way that achieves justice in the distribution of wealth among Iraqis.”
Al-Atwani stressed the need to set a timetable for implementing the provisions of the oil agreement between the center and the region, in accordance with what was stipulated in the draft law amending the Federal General Budget Law, which the Council of Ministers voted on and sent to Parliament.
In turn, the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Oil for Extraction Affairs, Basem Muhammad Khadir, reviewed the mechanisms for calculating the cost of oil production and transportation, and the most prominent understandings reached with the region in this regard.
The Undersecretary of the Ministry of Oil stressed the necessity for the Federal Ministry of Oil to be responsible for the reservoir management of the region’s oil fields, noting that his ministry has fixed standards for calculating the cost of producing a barrel of oil, whether at the level of fields managed by national effort or those managed by foreign companies.
shafaq.com
