IOCs get blacklisted from operating in Iraqi Kurdistan. Two landmark legal rulings made in February by the Supreme Court of the Federal Government of Iraq in Baghdad paved the way for blacklisting the IOCs. The withdrawal from the parliament of Moqtada al-Sadr and his 73-member power bloc has caused chaos in Baghdad. Any hopes held by international oil companies (IOCs) that the Baghdad-based Federal Government of Iraq (FGI) was just bluffing about blacklisting IOCs operating in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq have been dashed. A letter sent on 12 June by Hassan Muhammad Hassan, the deputy director general of the state-run Basra Oil Company (BOC) called on ‘all lead contractors and sub-contractors of IOCs working in Iraqi Kurdistan to pledge that they would no […]