Source: Iraq’s Parliament to vote on budget amendment today

Shafaq News/ Iraqi political factions agreed to approve a budget law amendment in today’s parliamentary session, Shiite Coordination Framework (CF) announced on Sunday.

Lawmaker Mohammed Radi told Shafaq News that “There is a parliamentary will to support the government’s efforts in resolving disputes with the Kurdistan Region.”

Radi added that approving the amendment is crucial to expediting the government's submission of the 2025 budget tables. “No one wants to delay the budget, as it is essential for advancing reconstruction and launching key strategic projects this year,” he said.

On Saturday, the Iraqi parliament’s finance committee confirmed that lawmakers would vote on the government’s proposal to amend Article 12 of the general budget law during Sunday’s session.

The draft amendment includes two key provisions. The first concerns the production and transportation costs of oil from the Kurdistan Region, which will be determined based on actual estimated expenses verified by an advisory body.

The second stipulates that if the federal and regional governments fail to agree on these costs, Iraq’s Oil Ministry will appoint an independent entity to determine them.

The extraction costs for Kurdistan’s oil fields will then be calculated accordingly.

Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) lawmaker Jiay Timor previously told Shafaq News that the Iraqi government had initially set oil extraction costs at $6 per barrel in the budget law—a figure he described as unrealistically low.

“Foreign companies operating in oil extraction incur costs of up to $26 per barrel,” he noted.

However, the government's amendment raises it to $16.

Notably, in June 2023, Parliament approved the General Budget Law for the fiscal years 2023, 2024, and 2025. Article 12 of the law outlines provisions for reimbursing the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) for oil production and transportation costs in the Kurdistan Region.