KRG Ministry of Natural Resources

10:00am - Arrival, Registration and Introductions 

10:30am – Briefing 

12:30pm – Lunch 

Participants

Dr. Ashti A. Hawrami 
Minister of Natural Resources, Kurdistan Regional Government 

Dr. Khalid Salih 
Official Spokesman of the Kurdistan Regional Government; and former Constitutional Adviser to the KRG 

Dr. Jonathan Morrow 
Senior Legal Adviser to the Ministry of Natural Resources, Kurdistan Regional Government 

Mr. Magne Normann 
Senior Vice-President for the Middle East, DNO 

Agenda

10:30 
Introduction and legal background to the draft Petroleum Act, investment opportunities, and geopolitics (Dr Hawrami) 

10:50 
Constitutional overview – regional and federal (Dr Salih) 

11:10 
Description of the draft Act (Dr Morrow) 

11:30 
Current experience of oil exploration in Kurdistan (Mr Normann) 

11:45 
Question and Answer session 

12:30 
Buffet lunch and informal discussion 

Background to the briefing

On 7 August, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) published the initial draft of its Petroleum Act for internal as well as international consultation. On 9 September, the KRG published the final draft of its Petroleum Act. The Act describes the proposed co-operative arrangements on petroleum licensing, operation, and revenue sharing between the KRG and the Federal Government of Iraq. 

Click here to download the full text of the draft Act in PDF format 

This briefing is intended to meet the considerable demand for further information which has been received since the draft Act was published. 

The briefing will cover the proposed legal arrangements; the underlying constitutional framework for the region and Iraq; and a detailed explanation of the draft Act. There will also be a discussion of Kurdistan’s draft Model Production Sharing Contract and Kurdistan’s proposed Petroleum Law for the whole of Iraq. 

The Senior Vice-President for the Middle East for DNO will recount his company’s experiences of oil exploration in the region. DNO was the first Norwegian oil company to be listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange, and operates several production and exploration assets in the North Sea, Yemen, Equatorial Guinea and Mozambique. On 11 June 2006, Minister Hawrami announced that DNO had discovered commercially recoverable quantities of oil in the Tawke structure near Zakho in Kurdistan. 

After the formal briefing and Q&A session, there will be an informal opportunity for further discussions over a buffet lunch. 

Attendance

If you would like to attend please RSVP to the KRG team at Luther Pendragon at the email address below. 

N.B. Spaces for the briefing are limited. Admission will be by email confirmation only. Please bring the confirmation email with you on the day. 

krg2@luther.co.uk