Under pressure: Hussain Shahristani
Shahristani to face his critics
Iraq's Oil Minister Hussain Shahristani was summoned to parliament today to answer criticism about plans to award major energy contracts next week, deals which some lawmakers have vowed to derail.
"We will not allow the Oil Ministry to move ahead, ignoring parliament and signing (energy) contracts in the first bidding round, since they are illegal and unconstitutional," Reuters quoted Ali Hussain Balou, who heads parliament's oil and gas committee, as saying.
Balou, a member of a Kurdish minority that has long assailed Shahristani's management of the oil sector, pledged to "totally reject" the plans to award eight long-term oil and gas contracts on 29 and 30 June unless they had been approved by parliament.
Meanwhile, Shahristani said the contracts would be handed out on schedule, despite parliament's demands.
"The opening of the offers will take place on schedule. Parliament has no position" on this matter, he told reporters after addressing parliament.
Shahristani has rebuffed demands from some lawmakers that the deals be approved by parliament.
Earlier Balou called for other senior officials in the state-run oil industry to appear in parliament.
Some of those executives have criticised the Oil Ministry for offering oilfields already in production rather than undeveloped fields, and for setting out terms they say will deprive Iraq of its due rewards.
Iraq's vast oil reserves offer hope for a country struggling to rebuild after more than six years of bloodshed and destruction triggered by the 2003 US invasion.
But the tussle for control over the oil wealth has also pitted Arabs against Kurds and prevented the passage through parliament of modern hydrocarbon legislation.
Shahristani's appearance in parliament underscores the fierce debate over how best to exploit Iraq's reserves and boost lacklustre oil production.
Output, at 2.3 million to 2.4 million barrels per day, remains below where it stood before the invasion.
The contracts on offer give foreign companies no share of production but pay them a development fee.
The semi-autonomous Kurdish authorities in the north have struck their own parallel energy deals with private firms but the Oil Ministry has rejected those as illegal.
Kurdish officials have warned in return that they might reject any contract the Oil Ministry issued to a private firm to develop the Kirkuk oilfields, a major oil-producing region that Kurds claim as their ancestral capital and where their Peshmerga forces currently provide security.
"If (Shahristani) dares to sign these contracts, he must assume responsibility for the consequences," Balou said.