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The Role of the Kurds in Iraqi Politics

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The Role of the Kurds in Iraqi Politics THE INSTITUTE FOR MIDDLE EAST STUDIES IMES CAPSTONE PAPER SERIES DEPENDENT ASPIRATIONS: THE OIL POLICIES OF THE KURDISTAN REGIONAL GOVERNMENT THOMAS STROUSE MAY 2010 THE INSTITUTE FOR MIDDLE EAST STUDIES THE ELLIOTT SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY COPYRIGHT OF THE AUTHOR, 2010 DEPENDENT ASPIRATIONS: THE OIL POLICIES OF THE KURDISTAN REGIONAL GOVERNMENT Author: Thomas Strouse May 2010 Table of Contents INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................ 3 KURDISTAN’S FLEDGLING OIL SECTOR ......................................................................................... 4 ERBIL MOVES QUICKLY; BAGHDAD LAGS BEHIND .................................................................... 5 KURDISH EXPORTS AND REVENUE SHARING ............................................................................... 7 KRG DEPENDENCIES AND LEVERAGE ............................................................................................. 9 ASSESSING THE TWO ARGUMENTS ................................................................................................ 14 THE ROLE OF THE KURDS IN IRAQI POLITICS ........................................................................... 16 TURKEY’S SHIFTING RED LINES ON THE KRG ........................................................................... 19 CONCLUSION: 2010 AND BEYOND .................................................................................................... 22 2 Introduction The Kurdistan Region of Iraq is years ahead of the rest of the country in terms of economic and institutional development. Beginning to develop its oil and gas sector following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has been part of an ongoing struggle with Iraq’s central government over oil policies since that time. Underlying the major differences between Baghdad and Erbil are deep political and identity issues that have made compromise difficult. Despite its desire for an independent and decentralized oil policy, the KRG is forced to rely on Iraq’s central government because it controls the national pipeline that transports oil from northern Iraq to markets through Turkey. For its part, Turkey insists on dealing with Iraq’s central government on oil exports as well as other official state matters. Ankara’s relationship with Erbil is deeply influenced by Turkey’s own Kurdish minority, which it fears could use the KRG as a model of enhanced autonomy inside Turkey. Consequently, the KRG must maintain difficult relationships with both Baghdad and Ankara as it exploits the energy resources that sustain its autonomy and promote its development. Relations between Baghdad and Erbil have occasionally been tense since 2003, with issues relating to oil at the center of many of their disputes. The Kurdish region was much quicker than the central government to exploit its oil assets, signing deals with foreign oil companies in the absence of an oil law and without permission from Baghdad. The KRG signed its first contract with DNO, a Norwegian oil company, in June 2004. It has since signed contracts with more than 30 additional foreign oil companies. When the Iraqi parliament was unable to come to an agreement on a federal hydrocarbons law, the Kurds drafted and approved their own 3 regional oil and gas law in August 2007. The Kurds decided that they could no longer be inhibited by the instability in the rest of Iraq and that the KRG must carve out its own path if it hopes to successfully develop its oil and gas sector, which is crucial to the Kurdistan Region’s long-term sustainability. Kurdistan’s Fledgling Oil Sector Prior to 2003, Iraqi Kurdistan was undeveloped, underexplored, and its oil potential was for the most part unknown. Despite the lack of exploration, the region is positioned in the vicinity of some of Iraq’s major oil fields, specifically Kirkuk, which has been producing oil for decades. There have always been expectations that oil existed in the region, but for political and economic reasons, the Kurds found themselves powerless to exploit their potential resource endowment. It was official state policy during the days of Saddam to not carry out oil exploration in the Kurdish region.1 After gaining semi-autonomy following the first Gulf War in 1991, the Kurds were still unable to exploit their oil resources. They essentially had to deal with a double embargo—one imposed by the UN on Iraq and the other imposed by the Iraqi government on the Kurdish region.2 In the early 1990s, the Kurds set up a special projects commission in order to build a refinery at the site of four wells that were drilled in the late 1970s, but capped following the breakout of the Iran-Iraq War in 1980. However, the Kurdistan Region was unable to import necessary parts because of the UN embargo imposed on Iraq following its invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Since the Kurds were unable to build a refinery and produce oil from the field, the local population began collecting oil that bubbled up from the surface and took it to surrounding 1 Interview, former executive at the Iraq National Oil Company, Erbil, 15 March 2010. *Due to the level of sensitivity of issues relevant to this paper, many sources in Erbil requested that information be provided “on background.” 2 “The Kurdish Policy Imperative,” Gareth Stansfield, Robert Lowe, and Hashem Ahmadzadeh, Chatham House Briefing Paper, December 2007. p. 4. 4 villages in order to refine. This occurred in an area known as Taq Taq, which is one of two medium-sized fields where the KRG is producing oil today.3 The UN embargo imposed on Iraq turned the major border crossing with Turkey, Ibrahim Khalil, into a lucrative smuggling route. Significant profits were made by some Kurdish factions, earning money on transit fees from oil smuggled out of Iraq, as well as taxes on the consumer goods being smuggled into Iraq. Revenues from oil smuggling were a major point of disagreement between the two main Kurdish political parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the dominant party in the Kurdish provinces of Dohuk and Erbil, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the dominant party in Sulaymaniyah province. The competition over control of the smuggling revenues contributed to the periodic violence between the two sides in the 1990s.4 Erbil Moves Quickly; Baghdad Lags Behind Despite a number of factors inhibiting the ability of the Kurds to exploit their oil resources in the past, they quickly began trying to attract foreign companies to invest in their oil sector following the American invasion of Iraq in March 2003. In fact, the first public calls by the Kurdish leadership for foreign investment occurred only weeks after the war began. At the time, many companies remained hesitant because there was not even a government in Baghdad, let alone laws detailing ownership and control of Iraq’s oil resources in a postwar environment. The PUK, which formerly controlled Sulaymaniyah as part of the interim regional government, had actually begun seeking investment from foreign oil companies as early as July 2002, quietly offering sample production sharing agreements (PSA) to Western companies in the summer and fall of that year. The sample PSA was for the Taq Taq area, northeast of Kirkuk, 3 “Kurds Powerless to Tap Into Oil Wealth,” Agence France-Presse, 21 June 1995. 4 “A Shaky De Facto Kurdistan,” David Aquila Lawrence, Middle East Report, No. 215, Summer 2000, p. 25. 5 which had already been producing small amounts of oil for local consumption. No company accepted the PUK proposal in 2002 and foreign firms held out for the remainder of 2003, despite an obvious attraction to what the untapped region might have to offer. Among other reasons, companies did not want to jeopardize the opportunity to reach future deals with Baghdad if they got involved in questionable legal deals with the Kurds early on in the war.5 The KRG signed its first exploration and development contract in June 2004, marking the first oil deal signed with a foreign company in a post-Saddam Iraq. The operating company, DNO, began drilling in November 2005 and discovered the Tawke field one month later. The company’s experience in Kurdistan is a useful vehicle to examine Baghdad-Erbil relations in the context of oil policies, with DNO’s fate often moving with the ebb and flow in relations between the KRG and Iraq’s central government. DNO and other foreign companies took an enormous amount of risk by signing oil deals with the KRG. First, the companies could not be certain that the contracts would be honored in the face of Baghdad’s disapproval. Second, there was no guarantee that they would discover oil in their respective areas of exploration. Prior to the signing of the contracts, oil companies had many questions about the reserve potential in the region. Seismic work had not previously been completed and the only evidence to rely on was the existence of promising surface structures, with which geologists are able to make educated guesses about reserve potential. Ultimately, one does not know how much oil or gas is under the ground until drilling begins.6 Despite the risks, there were enough small- and medium-sized companies that were willing to enter the promising market in northern Iraq. 5 “Iraqi Kurds Offering Upstream Oil Deals to Foreign Firms,” The Oil Daily, 14 May 2003. 6 Interview, Tarik Chalabi, DNO’s Iraq General Manager, Erbil, 15 March
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