Baker Botts Cuts an Iraqi Oil Deal -- and Draws a Backlash

Source: law.com

Ever since oil first gushed in Texas, Houston-based Baker Botts has represented wildcatters. While those deals were always risky, even Baker may not have anticipated that the deal made by the firm for its latest wildcatter -- Hunt Oil Company, a longtime client hungry for oil in Iraq -- was risking quite so much.

In September, Baker lawyered a deal between Hunt and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). In mid-November, the Iraqi Oil Minister announced that all oil companies that have cut deals with the KRG will be blacklisted. "Any company that has signed contracts without the approval of the federal authority of Iraq will not have any chance of working with the government of Iraq," oil minister Hussein al-Shahristani told reporters during OPEC meetings in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh. "We warned the companies that there will be consequences... that Iraq will not allow its oil to be exported," Shahristani said.

The deal was for exploration rights in northern Iraq. The Baker Botts team was led by Sean Korney, a Dubai-based partner with a record of representing energy companies buying up oil and gas rights around the globe. None were as controversial as the Hunt Oil rights, however. Not only was the deal made in a war zone, but Iraq is still working on oil resources legislation. Under the October 2005 Iraqi constitution, local oil is owned by "the Iraqi people."

Neither Baker Botts nor Hunt Oil would comment on the deal or on the Iraqi government's latest pronouncements.

Read more: http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1195639466942

All the poppy bush boys are part of it.
Have been for decades.
BHN

so that they could have three divisions - better to wheel and deal with each of them and pit them against each other in business and/or control.