By Newzad Mehmud SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region—Kurdish authorities in Erbil have shown their support for the establishment of Kirkuk’s own oil company detached from the existing North Oil Company (NOC) which would give the city more sovereignty in developing its energy sector, head of the oil committee in Kirkuk’s Provincial Council told Rudaw. “We have asked for the establishment of an oil company in Kirkuk instead of the current NOC, because a specially designed oil company for Kirkuk would drastically solve many of our problems,” Ahmed Askari said Monday. NOC which is one of the 16 companies that are directly managed by the Ministry of Oil in Baghdad with a geographical operation area that includes several provinces in the northern and central parts of the country including, Kirkuk, Nineveh, Erbil, Baghdad and Diyala. With nearly 10 percent of Iraq’s 140 billion barrels of oil reserves, Kirkuk has been in the spotlight for much of the last century when the oil discoveries were first made in the late 1930s. Kurds have accused the Iraqi government in the past for deliberately changing the demographic makeup of Kirkuk province by way of forceful migrations of Kurds and settling of Arab families in the area, which Kurds have labeled as the “Arabization process.” “They brought Arab labor force from Baghdad and Mosul and other cities to Kirkuk to work for the NOC while only 10 percent of the company’s work force was from Kirkuk,” Eskeri said. According to the Iraqi constitution any province could establish its own oil company in coordination with the Ministry of Oil in Baghdad, if the local production exceeds 100,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) But although the constitutional article has given the provincial rights since 2005, with over 150,000 bpd Kirkuk has so far been unable to break away from the NOC. “We don’t really want an independent oil company, what we want is a company that is independent of NOC, because what we have today is in fact a company for six provinces and not exclusively for Kirkuk,” said Jwan Hasan Arif, a provincial lawmaker. Arif said breaking away from NOC would give the local authorities more room to employ people and create better work opportunities for the growing population in Kirkuk, now over 1 million inhabitants.
Iraq13-06-2026Iraq says issued 250 death, life sentences against drug traffickers in first half of 2026
Iran13-06-2026Iranian authorities sentence Kurdish artist to six years in prison: Rights organization
