Authorities in a western Iraqi province rejected the results of this week's government-organised gas auction, which allowed a pair of foreign companies to develop a big deposit on its territory. The warning puts Anbar province on a collision course with the government in Baghdad, keen to allow foreign firms to tap its oil and gas reserves, and adds to a sense of uncertainty about doing business in Iraq.
In Iraq's third energy auction since the 2003 US invasion, South Korea's Kogas and Kazakhstan's KazMunaiGas Exploration & Production won a joint bid for Akkas, a field tucked away in the Sunni heartland of western Iraq. Jassim Mohammed, head of the local provincial council, said Anbar wanted the Bagdad government to pay more attention to its needs when signing major contracts.
"We refuse and reject the foreign companies that won the contract to develop Akkas gas field," Mohammed told Reuters. "We will not allow them to work and extract gas unless the opinion of the provincial council has been heard." He added Anbar wanted the Akkas contract to include a clause committing foreign companies to selling gas on the domestic market, as well as to processing it into value-added energy products that could be sold locally.
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