Shafaq News- Erbil
The Kurdistan Region (KRI) cannot sell regular gasoline at the price charged across the rest of Iraq because the federal government supplies it with crude oil far more expensively than it does other refineries, the KRI’s acting natural resources minister said Saturday.
Kamal Mohammed Salih told reporters that pump prices have reached record highs above 1,500 dinars a liter (about $1) and more than triple the 450-dinar rate charged elsewhere in Iraq, adding that the Kurdistan Regional Government has tried to close that gap and end “discrimination against Kurdish citizens relative to other Iraqis.” The obstacle, he said, is the price Baghdad sets for the crude the KRI must refine into fuel.
The federal Oil Ministry supplies crude to refineries in central and southern Iraq at about 5,900 dinars a barrel ($4) but charges the Kurdistan Region around 16 dollars a barrel, Salih said.
Even matching the lower price would not fully resolve the shortage, he said, because KRI needs 115,000 barrels of crude a day to meet local demand.
Kurdistan has about 2.9 million officially registered vehicles, he added, and should receive crude in line with its 12.6 percent share of Iraq's population —an allocation he put at about 126,000 barrels a day. That population-based figure, also used to set the KRI share of the national budget, has long been contested between Erbil and Baghdad in disputes over oil revenue and federal transfers.
Iraq's 16 other provinces together receive one million barrels of crude a day for refining, an average of about 66,000 barrels each, Salih said, while the Kurdistan Region is left out of that direct supply arrangement.