the Iraqi and Iranian boredr

Swiss man became a billionaire from Taq Taq Oil Field in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region (Rozhnamay Rozhnama)

Oil, the black gold that is the milestone source of budget in Iraq, has become an easy way to get rich immeasurably not only for politicians, but also for foreigners who come to invest in the oil fields. People always air their grievances to each other about unknown oil deals that have been made since the fall of Saddam’s Regime. The money that is earned from exporting oil should be used to build infrastructure Iraq but instead it goes to enrich the pockets of a few people.

A Swiss newspaper, NZZ Am Sonntag, tried to find out how one of its citizens, Jean Claude Gandur, became billionaire very quickly. In its research, NZZ am Sonntag discovered that Gandur who owns most of the oil company, Addax Petroleum, agreed to make a deal with the Turkish energy company- Genel-to buy a share of the oil field of Taq Taq which is 680 KM squared and located East of Erbil.  His business wisdom pushed him to beat other businessmen and buy 30% of the oil field of Taq Taq in 2005. This deal was made at the time when the Iraqi oil law which caused serious problems between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Central Government in Baghdad was not yet in effect. The Iraqi government regarded such oil deals with foreign company as illegal and believes it is the only one who is able to make such deals. Jean bought his company’s share in the oil field of Taq Taq for 350 million US dollars, and sold it to Sinopec Company for seven billion US dollars. Since he owned a big share of Addax, two billion US dollars went in his own pocket.

   The Rozhnamay Rozhnama newspaper that belongs to the opposition party, Chang Movement, stated that, “This deal shows that officials in the region did not care at what price they sell the share as long as it served their personal interests and could take some of the money and fill up their pockets.”

     After the KRG signed an agreement with the Iraqi government in 2009 to export oil from Kurdistan’s oil fields, five to six thousand barrels of oil have been exported each day from Taq Taq oil field. This amount will be soon increased to 150,000 barrels per day, according to the announcement by the Director of the Taq Taq oil field, Mehmel Okutan,; he also mentioned that the Taq Taq’s oil is one of the best types of oil in the world.

     Rozhnamay Rozhnama said that, “The oil of Taq Taq could benefit a Swiss individual and the companies that work there a lot. It is clear and we all know by now that Jean could make two billion dollars from his deal, but what is noticeable and questionable is the amount of money that the KRG officials have made from this deal making it clear to everyone that they benefit daily from exporting oil officially and unofficially. Another thing that should be mentioned here is that finding oil in Kurdistan has not improved life for people in the region, but rather improved the lives of officials financially. 

    Smuggling oil to Iran has become the common job of the officials in Kurdistan since 2003. They steal oil and sell it to their own pockets with impunity. The recent article in the New York Times sparked an argument between the central government and the KRG.  The central government asked an explanation but the KRG was in the state of denial. The article started off a wide criticism of the KRG in the local papers which made the prime minister of KRG to order the prevention of oil to Iran, but the oil smuggling has not stopped yet. The root of the problems that Kurdistan is suffering from is the dispute inside the government between the prime minister and other ministers. Since the prime minster is a member of the PUK and most of the ministers of the KRG are from PDK. The post of the prime minister was indicated to PUK in an agreement before the election. After the unexpected outcome of the election was released which was the PUK won 20 seats and the PDK 40 seats, PDK became reluctant to keep its promise in giving up on the post of prime minister. Because of the pressure of the PUK and “for the sake of their long-term agreement,” the PDK let the PUK to get the post of prime minister unwillingly. Since then the PDK ministers have been disordering the prime ministers decision. The reason why the prime minister is having difficulty in stopping the oil smuggling is because the oil ministry is the PDK member.