Iraq Oil Laws Quietly Move on

Quietly working behind the scenes, negotiators are hammering out a new draft Iraq oil law after previous versions of the controversial legislation stalled.

“Shortly, we’ll see a new draft which there is more common ground,” Abdul-Hadi al-Hasani, deputy chair of the Iraqi Parliament’s Oil, Gas and Natural Resources Committee, has told wire reports.

The latest draft is based on “good dialogue” between the central and Kurdistan region governments, he said, and the Council of Ministers will soon approve it and send it to his committee.

A new oil law has officially been in the works for two years. The law is one piece in a four-part package of legislation aimed at modernizing Iraq’s oil sector.

Another is a law re-establishing the Iraqi National Oil Co., the state company dissolved as Saddam Hussein consolidated power over Iraq’s oil via the Oil Ministry. “We are going to discuss it next week,” Hasani said, calling it “one step in the right direction.”

Hasani said INOC would incorporate all state companies operating in the oil and gas sector.

The remaining legislation — a law reorganizing the role of the Ministry of Oil and a revenue-sharing law, which decides how oil sales are captured and redistributed — both remain with the Council of Ministers.

And waiting in the wings are the oil majors…