KRG Ministry of Natural Resources

12 April 2013

KRG Ministry of Natural Resources statement

On April 1 and 2 several inaccurate reports appeared in the international media regarding an incident at the Sarsang block oil field operated by HKN Energy.

After we issued a statement clarifying the incident and pointing out the inaccuracies in some international media stories, several newspapers responded by publishing clarifications or making amendments to their reports. We welcome these corrections.

The Times published this clarification on its website on April 9: "A headline in our Scottish edition (April 2) misleadingly referred to 'a kidnapped Scottish oil worker in Kurdistan'.  As was clear from the accompanying report, the incident was not a kidnapping but the blockade of an oil platform in the course of a local labour dispute that was quickly resolved."

The Daily Mail also amended some inaccuracies in its article by removing from the article the words ‘gang’ and ‘ransom’, and removing the comment that the area is ‘lawless’.

After seeing our statement, the Aberdeen Press and Journal and the Evening Express also clarified in follow-up articles that the incident was caused by a wage dispute involving local workers who had not been paid for several months, and that it was resolved peacefully. Their follow-up articles were published on April 5 and 6, respectively.