“We will not allow the Oil Ministry to move ahead, ignoring parliament and signing (energy) contracts in the first bidding round, since they are illegal and unconstitutional,” said Ali Hussain Balou, who heads parliament’s oil and gas committee.

Balou, a member of a Kurdish minority that has long assailed Shahristani’s management of the oil sector, pledged to “totally reject” the plans to award eight long-term oil and gas contracts on June 29-30 unless they had been approved by parliament.

Shahristani was due to be questioned by lawmakers later.

It is unclear whether parliament can do anything to stop the Oil Ministry’s plan to conclude the bidding process, which will be Iraq’s first auction of prized oil resources to leading energy firms since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Balou called for other senior officials in the state-run oil industry to appear in parliament.

Some of those executives have criticised the Oil Ministry for offering oilfields already in production rather than undeveloped fields, and for setting out terms they say will deprive Iraq of its due rewards.

ARABS AGAINST KURDS

Iraq’s vast oil reserves, the world’s third largest, offer hope for a country struggling to rebuild after more than six years of bloodshed and destruction triggered by the 2003 U.S. invasion.

But the tussle for control over the oil wealth has also pitted Arabs against Kurds — presenting Iraq with a potential new flashpoint for broad conflict — and prevented the passage through parliament of modern hydrocarbon legislation.

Shahristani’s appearance in parliament underscores the fierce debate over how best to exploit Iraq’s reserves and boost lacklustre oil production.

Output, at 2.3 million to 2.4 million barrels per day, remains below where it stood before the invasion.

The contracts on offer give foreign firms no share of production but pay them a development fee.

The semi-autonomous Kurdish authorities in the north have struck their own parallel energy deals with private firms but the Oil Ministry has rejected those as illegal.

Kurdish officials have warned in return that they might reject any contract the Oil Ministry issued to a private firm to develop the Kirkuk oilfields, a major oil-producing region that Kurds claim as their ancestral capital and where their Peshmerga forces currently provide security.

“If (Shahristani) dares to sign these contracts, he must assume responsibility for the consequences,” Balou said.