Reliance signs oil contract with Iraqi Kurds

Iraq’s Kurdish administration has defiantly signed seven new foreign oil deals, including one with India’s Reliance Energy Ltd, in a move sure to anger the national Govt at Baghdad, which opposes the unilateral sell-off of crude blocs in the absence of a national oil law. The autonomous Kurdish Regional Government said in a statement posted on its website on Wednesday that two production sharing contracts have been signed with ORV Petroleum Exploration, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Europe’s OM Aktiengesellschaft. Mala Omar and Shorish blocks in the province of Arbil have been allotted in the deal. Separately, the Akre-Bijeel block in the Dohuk province has been awarded to Kalegran Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of MOL Hungarian Oil and Gas Plc and Gulf Keystone Petroleum Ltd, a subsidiary of Britain’s Gulf Keystone. The Shaikan block, also in Dohuk, has been awarded to Gulf Keystone, Texas Keystone and Kalegran.
The Rovi and Sarta blocks were granted to India’s Reliance Energy Ltd, it said, without making clear where the blocks are located.