Council of Ministers's resulotion

This is the translation of the latest resolution of the Council of Ministers approving the oil law and submitting it to the Council of Representatives. You can notice that this creates an unconstitutional loophole in article 5, setting May 31^st as a deadline for enacting the oil law even of the council of representatives did not approve it.

Council of Ministers

Oil and Energy Committee

Feb 26^th, 2007 11:00 AM

[…] the Iraqi government [the council of ministers] submits this law, regulating oil operations, to the Council of Representatives [The Parliament].

[…]

[...], the following arrangements shall be adopted to finalize the regulating of oil and gas operations in Iraq:

1- This oil and gas law and its four appendices shall be submitted to the Council of Representatives, after agreeing on the types of model contracts and on the general terms and conditions, together with the Financial Revenues Management Law. All parties shall finalize this task before March 15^th 2007.

2- Finalizing the laws of the Iraqi National Oil Company [INOC] and the Ministry of Oil in accordance to this laws articles and regulations. In addition, the Oil and Gas law in Kurdistan region Must be in harmony with the articles and regulations of the federal oil and gas law, ad in accordance to the constitution.

3- All oil operations and exploration and production rights’ granting shall be put on hold for areas included in article 140 that might have administrative changes for its boarders, except the oil operations related to the INOC that may continue its work in the fields discovered and already developed in accordance to the constitution.

4- All parties must abstain from signing new contracts agreements related to exploration and production activates in Iraq until this law is fully enacted.

5- The Federal Government, in coordination with the regions governments, shall finalize the requirements needed to implement this law and activate the entities mentioned in the law in a time period not exceeding the end of May 2007. In case this deadline was not met, the Iraqi Prime Minister shall meet with the president of Kurdistan Region to implement the law within one month and reach out to a solution based on one of the following options:

a. In case article 5 was not finalized by the deadline of May 31^st 2007, the two parties shall have the right to sign Exploration and Production Contracts in accordance to the constitution, this law, and the general principles of contracts’ models (the first option).

b. Extend the time period mention above.