Iraq's Kurdish region has signed an exploration deal with Exxon Mobil, a Kurdish official said on Sunday, confirming a deal that Iraq has said could jeopardise the US oil giant's southern oilfield contract. Natural Resources Minister Ashti Hawrami said the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) signed a contract with Exxon in mid-October for six exploration blocks in the semi-autonomous region.
Iraq's central government, which has long-running disputes with the Kurdish region over oil and land, has said Baghdad would consider a deal between Exxon and the KRG illegal and a violation of the company's contract to develop Iraq's 8.7-billion-barrel West Qurna Phase One oilfield in the south. "It is a binding contract," Hawrami said at an oil and gas conference in the Kurdish capital, Arbil. "It was signed completely on the 18th of October 2011."
It was the first official confirmation from the KRG. Exxon has yet to comment on the deal.
Iraqi Kurdistan has enjoyed more stability and security in recent years than the rest of Iraq, which is struggling with stubborn violence from insurgents and militias more than eight years after the US invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
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