Reliance signs northern Iraq oil contract – source

Even as Turkish troops mass on the border of northern Iraq, India’s Reliance signed a deal on Monday to explore for oil and gas in Iraq’s Kurdish region, a senior company official said.

Reliance signed the production sharing contract for two exploration blocks with the semi-autonomous Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), the source said.

“To begin with we will be 100 percent stakeholders but later on Iraq can mandate a company to have a stake in the blocks after discovery in line with their new law,” the company official, who declined to be named, said.

“They have been given to us on (a) negotiation basis.”

A KRG government spokesman was not immediately available to respond to enquiries about the deal.

Reuters