Kurdish Lawmakers Call for Increased Fuel Allocation to Kurdistan Region
Iraq’s Parliamentary Oil, Gas and Natural Resources Committee approved recommendations on distributing 50,000 barrels of oil daily to the Kurdistan Region for refining and subsidized fuel distribution.
ERBIL (Kurdistan24) - Kurdish lawmakers are calling for increased fuel supplies to the Kurdistan Region after Iraq’s Parliamentary Oil, Gas and Natural Resources Committee approved new measures for distributing 50,000 barrels of oil per day allocated by the federal government to the Region for refining and distribution at subsidized prices.
Under the committee’s first recommendation, fuel supplies to the Kurdistan Region’s provinces would be handled by the Oil Products Distribution Company. Each province’s allocation would be determined according to the same criteria applied to other Iraqi provinces, in coordination with the Kurdistan Region Ministry of Natural Resources.
The committee stressed that if the available fuel supply decreases, the reduction would be distributed equally among all provinces.
In such a case, the allocation of 50,000 barrels of oil per day to the Kurdistan Region would be suspended, and the oil would instead be exported through the State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO).
At the same time, the Kurdistan Region Ministry of Natural Resources would be required to sell oil products in the Region’s provinces at prices approved by Iraq’s Federal Ministry of Oil.
Regarding the Kurdistan Region Ministry of Natural Resources’ proposal to increase the amount of federal crude oil supplied to more than 50,000 barrels per day, the committee set several conditions.
These include taking population figures into consideration while accounting for crisis conditions similar to those faced by other Iraqi provinces, as well as determining the oil allocation through a technical committee comprising representatives of refineries and the Oil Products Distribution Company.
The recommendations also call for domestic crude oil to be sold to the Kurdistan Region at the same price applied to refineries in other Iraqi provinces.
They further require black oil to be delivered according to the same federal mechanism.
The Ministry of Natural Resources has pledged to provide fuel to residents of the Kurdistan Region at the same approved prices applied in other Iraqi provinces.
At the end of the year, refining costs between refineries affiliated with Iraq’s Federal Ministry of Oil and refineries in the Kurdistan Region will be determined, with the aim of securing approval from the Federal Ministry of Oil.