ERBIL, Kurdistan Region— At least 61 oil refineries have ended their operations in the Kurdistan Region after new government regulations took effect last year, which have severely restricted private companies’ access to crude oil, according to a report from the Ministry of Natural Resources.
The closed refineries were running their operations without authorisation, the report said.
“The ministry has ordered to shut down all but 21 refineries which are currently needed to secure the domestic demand for fuel,” said lawmaker Dilshad Shaaban who is also a member of the parliament’s natural resources’ committee.
Shaaban said most of the refineries that had been shut down lacked many of the standard requirements to operate a modern refinery station.
According to the ministry’s report, there are still 129 unauthorised refineries in the Region which will also be adressed in the near future.
“Many of these refineries are associated with influential people and officials and the fact that they still receive crude oil supports this claim,” said Ghalib Muhammad who is the head of energy committee at the provincial council in Sulaimani.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in November last year signed an agreement with the UK-based Ernst and Young, one of the largest professional and financial firms in the world, to audit the region’s oil and gas processes.
The government hopes new regulations will help increase transparency in the oil industry which has frequently been described by opposition parties as "corrupted.”
“I have invested around $2 million in my refinery here, but we haven’t received any crude for the past two years,” said Pshtiwan Abdulqadir who joined the lucrative business in 2009.
“The private refinery installations around here have a value of nearly 1 billion but everything stands still and the owners have suffered great losses over the past year,” Abdulqadir said of a number of private oil refineries outside Erbil city.
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