“Major progress” has been made in the negotiations between the Iraqi Oil Ministry and the local government of Iraq’s Anbar Province regarding the development of gas fields in the province, independent Iraq news agency Aswat al-Iraq quoted a leading Oil Ministry spokesman.
“The Oil Ministry has discussed with Anbar Province and its Council, the contracts that had been scored by the Korean COGAS and the Kazakh MONAI GAS (Kazmunai) companies, to develop the gas fields in Anbar,” Assem Jihad said, adding that “a major progress had been achieved in the dialogues about the achievement of those contracts.”
Anbar’s provincial council announced its opposition to the auction days before bidding for its gas fields opened in Baghdad in October. The conflict between Anbar and central government began earlier this year when the oil ministry turned down a proposal by local officials to have a consortium of Turkish and German companies develop the gas field. The council threatened to reject the oil ministry’s proposals after their own was turned down.
Jihad said that “the Oil Ministry has laid a condition on the said international companies to depend on the Iraqi national cadre, with a percentage exceeding 85%,” pointing out that “Anbar Province would have additional revenues through this step, as well as Iraq in general, along with the encouragement of investment in the Province, being a significant step to serve projects in the whole of Iraq.”
“The Oil Ministry is looking forward towards national investments of the said fields and their revenues that would serve the interest of the Province in particular and the whole of Iraq in general,” Jihad said, adding that there are important projects in Anbar in the field of electric power.
Korean COGAS and Kazmunai were granted licenses to develop the province’s Ukaz gas field, estimated to hold about 2.1 trillion cubic feet of gas on a 50-50 basis in Iraq’s third gas licensing round.
