KRG Ministry of Natural Resources

The Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) completely rejects the latest false allegations made by the NRT network on about KRG’s oil production and export. The NRT report of 6th November was based on deliberate misrepresentation or ignorance or both:

- The document published by NRT, which they claimed was secret and proved corruption, was not secret at all, and it certainly did not prove any corruption. It was a provisional map with some information produced by Western Zagros (WZ), an international oil company (IOC) working in the Kurdistan Region, and was freely available for all to read on their website.

- The document does not show, as NRT claimed, actual oil production and export figures in the KRG for June 2015. It showed WZ’s own provisional estimations about production, which were in many respects inaccurate or simply wrong.

- The consultant who supplied some of the figures to WZ never worked or provided services for MNR or KRG, as alleged by NRT. The consultant in question provided some estimates, at very short notice, to WZ for an internal corporate meeting, and clearly warned WZ at the time the figures were possibly inaccurate.

- The figures claimed by NRT don’t match real production figures. They don’t even match the figures in the document they claim reveals them. NRT has clearly twisted numbers and misrepresented corporate documents for political purposes.

- Anyone wishing to see how wrong NRT’s production figures are can go to the corporate websites of publicly-listed IOCs producing in Kurdistan. At least one IOC has already written to NRT, and may take legal action unless NRT corrects its mistakes.

- NRT did not approach MNR with its allegations to request a response, which shows their goal was politics and propaganda and not professional journalism.

- MNR will soon reveal further information to demonstrate NRT’s falsification of KRG production figures and its irresponsible and unprofessional reporting which serves only to mislead the people of Kurdistan at a time of national crisis. No doubt, NRT will be vigorously pursued in the Kurdistan courts.