Iraqi Kurds’ Independence Vote Exposed Risks to Energy Strategy<br />Iraqi Kurdish leaders have long sought to craft an energy policy independent of the federal government in Baghdad, courting international companies<br />and offering lucrative deals to drill for potentially huge new reserves of oil and gas.<br />The energy consultants Wood Mackenzie peg total potential oil<br />and gas holdings in the region at about 13 billion barrels, and Kurdish officials have worked to attract investment from international oil companies.<br />The Kurds and the federal government have also never agreed on how to share oil revenue, or how<br />to handle oil concessions in Kurdistan — or even what territory constitutes the Kurdish region.<br />Energy giants like Chevron and Exxon Mobil shrugged off the threats of legal action by the Iraqi government<br />and the displeasure of Washington by signing contracts with the Kurdish region at a time when oil prices were significantly higher than they are now.<br />Genel Energy — the London-listed company co-founded<br />and led until 2015 by the former BP chief executive Tony Hayward — has in the past two years sharply downgraded its estimates of the volumes in the Taq Taq field, one of its two Kurdish mainstays.
