Iraq’s oil deal with Kurds is good for everyone | The National

Iraq’s oil deal with Kurds is good for everyone | The National:



"Patience, strategic vision and win-win agreements are in short supply in Iraq. But last week’s oil deal between the autonomous Kurdish region and the federal government in Baghdad could be a rare exception.



The arrangement calls for the Kurdish region to export 250,000 barrels per day (bpd) of its own oil production, and 300,000 bpd from the Kirkuk fields. These remain notionally under federal authority, but the Kurds took control in the wake of ISIL’s seizure of Mosul in June.



The oil will be marketed by the state organisation Somo, not by the Kurds themselves, as they had originally demanded. But they will receive 17 per cent of the federal budget – a number previously trimmed, then entirely cut off, by Baghdad – as well as half the expenses for their Peshmerga military."



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