Amman (Platts)--18May2009

Iraq's parliamentary oil and gas committee has asked the speaker of
parliament to summon oil minister Hussein al-Shahristani to answer what it
says are policy failures by the ministry under his stewardship.

The call for a summons came in a statement read out by an official from
the speaker's office on Iraq's Al-Sharqiya satellite television channel.
The official said the request was signed by 140 of parliament's 275
members.

The announcement came during a hearing to which the trade minister had
been summoned to answer questions in parliament. The summoning of a minister
is a constitutional right granted to parliament and can lead to the initiation
of a confidence vote involving the minister concerned.

In a follow-up interview to the summons for Shahristani, the secretary of
the oil and gas committee, Jaber Khalifa Jaber, told Al-Sharqiya that the
questions to the oil minister in general terms "cover all important aspects
where the ministry under Shahristani has failed in."

These include "failure to raise oil production and exports, thereby
depriving the national treasury of billions of dollars in revenues, failure to
expand the downstream sector, the neglect and decline in the performance of
oil installations, the unacceptable delays in the processing of laws such as
the oil and gas law, the non-resolution of disputes with the Kurdish region
and the ongoing smuggling and corruption within the industry," he said.
Jaber, a member of the Fadhila party, said the committee had been trying
to summon the oil minister for months but the previous speaker's office had
refused to process the requests.

The television report said the new speaker of parliament, Ayad
al-Sammaraie, met the head of the oil and gas committee and Jaber to discuss
the request for a summons.

The semi-official Iraqi daily Al-Sabah, meanwhile, reported on its
website on May 18 that instead of a summons, Shahristani may be "invited" to
address the parliamentary committee, a move that would exclude the possibility
of a no-confidence vote being called for.

The daily also quoted Sammaraie as saying that he would not object to the
summons of a minister or official provided legal processes were followed.
Shahristani, who is Iraq's longest-serving post-war oil minister, has
earned the wrath of the powerful Kurdish bloc in parliament for his refusal to
recognize the legality of more than 20 production-sharing contracts signed by
the Kurdistan Regional Government with international oil companies.

The Fadhila party has a grudge against the minister after losing the oil
ministry portfolio to Shahristani when he was appointed minister in May 2006,
replacing Amer Hashimi, who served briefly as oil minister.

Iraq's oil production has been in decline in recent months, particularly
from southern oil fields, due to problems that predate Shahristani's
appointment. However, the oil ministry has come under increasing pressure from
various political factions to raise oil production in order to boost national
revenues, which rely almost exclusively on oil exports to generate foreign
exchange, and have suffered as a result of declining production and lower
international oil prices.
--Faleh al-Khayat, newsdesk@platts.com