Energy giant Rosneft struck major deals with Iraq’s Kurdish region in 2017. Today, it has yet to cash in on them.
Two years after Iraq’s new constitution in 2005 officially recognised the autonomy of the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, Russia established formal relations with its regional government (the KRG) by opening a consulate in its capital Erbil.
By then, the United States, the United Kingdom, Iran and Turkey had become the main political and economic players in the oil-rich region, which holds proven reserves of some 45 billion barrels of oil (10th biggest in the world) and is estimated to have between 2.8 to 5.7 trillion cubic metres of natural gas (roughly as much as Algeria).
Although Russia boasted “historic” relations with the Kurdish leadership (Mustafa Barzani, the father of the former KRG president, Masoud Barzani, spent 12 years in exile in the Soviet Union), it seemed there was little space for it to play a major role in the autonomous region.
But when, in the early 2010s, Russian energy companies sent delegations to probe for potential oil deals, KRG’s western partners became nervous. According to a former Russian diplomat who spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity, the UK’s foreign office, in particular, was worried.
In a 2012 conversation with him, British officials expressed their concern that the Russian companies’ entry into the Kurdish energy sector could stir trouble by giving the KRG political backing to go against the common consensus among the UK, US, Turkeyand Iran that the Kurdish region should remain part of Iraq.
