MP wants reported purchase of oil shares by Kurdistan minister probed

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: An Iraqi legislator on Saturday called to set up a parliamentary committee to investigate media reports about a Kurdistan minister’s purchase of shares in the Norwegian oil giant DNO International, which works in the Iraqi Kurdistan region. “If proved right, this matter would be deemed as breach of both the constitution and the law, and then the parliament would be entitled to investigate these claims,” Abdulhadi al-Hassani, a member of the Iraqi parliament’s oil & gas committee, told Iraqi News. On September 18, 2009, the Oslo Stock Exchange has revealed that DNO had secretly sold shares worth $35 million to the Kurdistan RegionG minister of natural resources, Ashti Hawrami, in 2008, something deemed by the Norwegian bourse as “violation” of its laws. “No government official who owns shares in a global company working in Iraq may be the negotiating party with it on behalf of Iraq ,” stressed Hassani. Norway ’s oil company DNO was reportedly trying to settle its differences with the Kurdistan Regional Government Kurdistan RegionG) authorities after its activities were suspended in the semi-autonomous region for six weeks. The Norwegian firm fears it might be denied work in the Iraqi Kurdistan region after its shares in the Oslo Stock Exchange nosedived by 55 percent on Thursday, according to a statement by the company, which said that it was discussing ways with the Kurdistan RegionG to resolve the problem as soon as possible. The Kurdistan authorities said their reputation was “unjustifiably severely tarnished” in the wake of differences between the Norwegian company and the Oslo Stock Exchange regarding information about the sale of 44 million of DNO shares on October 1, 2008. DNO said it was ready to “take legal measures against the Oslo Stock Exchange which it believes has violated the rules of confidentiality by revealing the name of the shares buyer. The Oslo bourse has denied over and again that it has committed any violations. DNO International ASA, originally Det norske oljeselskap, DNO ASA prior to November 2007, is Norway ’s fourth largest petroluem company with upstream operations in the North Sea, Middle East and Africa . The company, headquartered in Oslo and is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange, is a result of the merger between Pertra and DNO’s Norwegian business. DNO is one of many foreign oil corporations that have signed contracts with the Iraqi Kurdistan region to develop oilfields there despite outcries from the federal Iraqi government prior to sanctioning the export of 100,000 barrels of crude oil via pipelines to Turky last June. The Norwegian firm is developing the Tawki oilfield, which produces 40,000 to 50,000 barrels per day (bpd). AmR (I)/SR 1