Kurdistan ‘Hunts’ for Oil: The Kurds Make Their Own Rules

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) recently passed their own benchmark oil revenue sharing legislation, separate from Baghdad, and has just signed
their first oil production sharing contract with an outside company:

Texas’ Hunt Oil Co. and Kurdistan’s regional government said Saturday they’ve signed a production-sharing contract for petroleum exploration in northern Iraq, the first such deal since the Kurds passed their own oil and gas law in August.

According to this press release issued by the KRG, the Hunt Oil Company, working with Impulse Energy Corporation, will start with a geological survey of seismic activity in the Duhok area of Kurdistan, followed by the first exploration well in 2008:

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) together with Hunt Oil Company of the Kurdistan Region, a subsidiary of Hunt Oil Company of Dallas, Texas, and Impulse Energy Corporation (IEC) announced today that they have signed a Production Sharing Contract (PSC) covering petroleum exploration activities in the Duhok area of the Kurdistan Region.

The specifics of the deal were not released, but the existence of the deal, a result of the Kurdish Regional Government’s own legislation on oil revenue sharing, is bound to make Baghdad take notice after the KRG spoke out against the al-Maliki government’s draft legislation of an oil law in July, 2007. It was this rift that led the KRG to pass their own legislation in August, 2007, legislation now seemingly legitimized by Hunt Oil’s Production Sharing Agreement with the KRG.

Which leads to questions about the Bush Administration’s involvement in the deal, given that Ray L. Hunt, the head of Hunt Oil (and one of President Bush’s guests to the May, 2007 State Dinner for Queen Elizabeth II), was appointed to a two two-year terms on President Bush’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, first on October 5, 2001 and again on October 27, 2005 – a board which, according to this webpage, is:

Unique within the government, the PFIAB traditionally has been tasked with providing the President with an independent source of advice on the effectiveness with which the intelligence community is meeting the nation’s intelligence needs and the vigor and insight with which the community plans for the future.

The Huffington Post