Oil heartland: South Korea will provide infrastructure worth $3.55 billion in return for stakes in oilfields in Iraq's southern Basra region
South Korea agrees $3.55bn Iraq deal
South Korea will provide Iraq with $3.55 billion worth of infrastructure in return for oilfield stakes, the South Korean Energy Ministry said today.
South Korea would be given rights to the fields in southern Basra. In exchange, Seoul would build infrastructure such as power plants and generators, the ministry said in a statement.
The agreement came during a meeting between South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and his Iraqi counterpart, Jalal Talabani, in Seoul. A final agreement would be sealed by the first half of the year, it said.
The deal comes as the Baghdad-based Iraqi central government and the semi-autonomous Kurdish region continue to dispute the status of deals in the northern enclave, Reuters reported.
"We regard the new agreement as evidence that tensions between South Korea and Iraq due to Korea National Oil Corporation's involvement in the Kurdish oil development business have eased," the ministry said.
State-run KNOC recently entered a $2.1 billion investment in Kurdish oilfields alone after several consortium members dropped out due to political instability.
SK Energy, South Korea's top refiner, vowed to stop additional investment in the semi-autonomous region without the central government's approval.
The right to sign independent oil deals with foreign oil companies has been a sore point between the Kurdish regional government and the Baghdad government as the two sides struggle, sometimes publicly, for control of oil resources and territory.
Baghdad has said such contracts are illegal without central government consent.