DNO: Kurdistan Ready For Talks, Resumption Of Oil Exports

   DOW JONES NEWSWIRES 

Dr Ashti Hawrami, Minister for Natural Resources at the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), said Monday the Government is ready to start a serious dialogue regarding oil contracts with the Kurdistan Region.

 
   MAIN FACTS: 

-KRG ready to immediately restart the process of oil exports from the Kurdistan Region's fields at a rate of no less than 100,000 barrels per day.

-It will also work to rapidly increase production to more than 200,000 barrels per day this year.

-"Although there are different views on the level of the profit share to be allocated to the contractors, the reality obliges us all to agree on the resumption of the oil export and to allocate a certain percentage of the revenue from the exported oil to the concerned contracted companies, to cover their actual costs."

-"This will create a suitable and a positive atmosphere to enable us to start, as soon as possible, a dialogue about all other suspended issues - particularly to open the door for everyone to understand the framework of the contracts that the KRG has signed. In particular we can then address the amount profit that is granted to the contracted companies."

-"We do not object to offering the oil produced in the Kurdistan Region by the contracted companies to SOMO (State Oil Marketing Organisation of Iraq), assuming that SOMO then allocates part of the Region's oil revenue either to the KRG to compensate the companies involved, or for SOMO to directly compensate the agreed amounts to the companies involved, provided that such payments do not exceed the amounts that these companies have spent."

-"The balance of the derived oil revenue should then be deposited in the Federal Government's bank account."

-The current relevant producing companies include DNO and Genel.

-We are ready to form a financial committee composed of representatives from the Federal Government's and the Kurdistan Region's ministries of finance, along with representatives from the aforementioned companies, to verify and confirm the exact amounts of money that these companies have invested so far.

-For the sake of expediting this process, it is also necessary to create another committee composed of representatives of the KRG Ministry of Natural Resources, SOMO, DNO, and Genel, to confirm the amount of oil produced and exported by these companies, and to confirm the revenue that SOMO receives from the sale of the oil produced and exported by them, to ensure that an accurate and a fair compensation is made to them.

-Although the initial oil production will begin with 100,000 barrels per day, it will increase gradually and continuously to 1,000,000 barrels per day within five years from now.

-The anticipated revenue that the Federal Government will receive from the oil production of the Kurdistan Region during the coming five years from 2010 to 2014 will be: $2.75B (2010), $8.23B (2011), $12.45B (2012), $18.27B (2013), and $25.62B (2014).

-The total cost compensation of the companies contracted in the Region for the same period will be: $1.4B (2010), $0.9B (2011), $1.05B (2012), $1.2B (2013), and $1.4B (2014).

-By 2015 the total revenue will be more than $27B per year, with a cost compensation of $1.5B per year to the companies involved.

-By Stockholm Bureau, Dow Jones Newswires; [phone]; [e-mail]