Baghdad court rejects Oil Ministry effort to invalidate KRG oil contracts

Oil companies operating in Kurdistan scored a significant legal victory in Baghdad as a court rejected an Oil Ministry appeal and reversed prior rulings that had invalidated several upstream oil contracts with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

Iraq Oil Report obtained copies of rulings by the Karkh Court of Appeals in Baghdad, issued on Dec. 18, which appear to put an end to a legal campaign waged by the federal Oil Ministry against nine oil companies with upstream contracts in Kurdistan: Addax, Dana Gas, DNO, GazpromNeft, Genel Energy, Gulf Keystone, HKN Energy, ShaMaran, and Western Zagros.

The contracts are "considered valid," the rulings say, even though the contracts depend upon legal foundations that were deemed unconstitutional by Iraq's Federal Supreme Court (FSC) in February 2022.