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An official from Dana Gas has said that the UAE-based company is determined to press ahead with its major pipeline project in the Kurdistan Region despite the Iraq government declaring the deal illegal.
Speaking at the sidelines of a conference in the UAE, an unnamed official from the company told news agency Reuters that Dana Gas, its UAE-based affiliate Crescent Petroleum and the other two consortium members, Austria’s OMV and Hungary’s MOL, were all still 100% behind the deal.
“From a legal standpoint, our contact is 100% valid … what is happening between the Kurdish government and the federal government is a conflict we have no part in,” the source is reported by Reuters as saying.
The consortium is bidding to resurrect the Nabucco pipeline project. The pipeline will pump gas from the Kurdistan Region into Europe via a pipeline running through neighbouring Turkey.
Dana Gas and Crescent Petroleum have spent $605 million to date fast-tracking the development of the Khor Mor gas field and a local natural gas network, including construction of a 176km natural gas transmission pipeline in record time.
It is understood that the four partners in the project are willing invest an estimated $8 billion into the scheme that will also service the local Iraq market as well as Europe.
However, within 24 hours of the deal being announced, Baghdad issued a statement rejecting the contracts and stating that any deal in the Kurdistan Region that does not include the Iraqi Oil Ministry to be illegal.
The Kurdistan Regional Government reacted by saying that the contracts were within the parameters of Iraqi law.
