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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) on Thursday rejected allegations of oil smuggling and inflated production figures, a day after an adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi claimed that the Region was illegally exporting oil to Turkey through Syria.
“Yes there is,” Ala Talabani, a Kurdish adviser to Zaidi on women's affairs, told Alawla TV on Wednesday when asked whether oil smuggling takes place in Iraq.
She alleged that oil was being smuggled from the Kurdistan Region to Syria before reaching Turkey, adding that the Iraqi prime minister had asked Ankara to halt the alleged shipments.
The KRG's natural resources ministry dismissed the allegations on Thursday.
“These claims, which lack facts and reliable data, not only undermine the performance of KRG institutions, but also impugn the credibility of federal institutions and the mechanisms managing this file,” the ministry said in a statement.
Talabani also cited a lawmaker who claimed that the Kurdistan Region produces 650,000 barrels of oil per day, a figure disputed by the KRG.
Citing data from international energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie, which is contracted by Iraq's oil ministry, the KRG ministry stated that “the Region's current oil production stands at approximately 255,000 barrels per day (bpd), while its projections indicate the potential to reach 308,000 bpd by 2027 under the best-case scenario.”
The ministry added that attributing unverified figures to an international institution without official publication “constitutes a clear deception of public opinion.”
Rejecting the smuggling allegations, the ministry said federal authorities were directly involved in overseeing the Region's oil exports.
“There are 42 representatives from the Federal Ministry of Oil supervising the operations to export the Region's oil to Turkey,” it said.
The ministry added that all revenues from the Region's oil exports through Iraq's State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO) were deposited into the federal finance ministry's treasury.
It also said federal authorities and independent international experts had been granted access to inspect oil fields and export meters across the Region.
The ministry further rejected allegations concerning the ownership of oil companies operating in the Kurdistan Region.
“The claim that these companies belong to ruling families in the Region is a serious and unacceptable accusation that impugns the integrity and international reputation of these companies,” it said, adding that the accusations are “also harming the investment climate in the Kurdistan Region and Iraq as a whole.”
In a separate statement on Thursday, the Region’s ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party's (KDP) parliamentary bloc condemned Talabani's remarks and threatened legal action.
“In the face of these fabrications, false accusations, and attempts at deception, we will take all necessary legal measures and avenues to expose the facts and confront this illegitimate media campaign.”
Talabani, a Kurd, is a former lawmaker in Baghdad affiliated with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the dominant party in Sulaimani.
Kurdish opposition figures Shaswar Abdulwahid, leader of the New Generation Movement, and Ali Hama Saleh of the National Stance Movement (Halwest), have also made similar allegations about oil production and smuggling in the Kurdistan Region.
