The Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) was recognised by the Iraqi constitution of 2005 as a federal region within a sovereign and independent Iraq, however, the decades-long quest for self-determination through independence played a crucial role in Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)’s state-building process. A core component of any state-building drive is securing an independent revenue stream to achieve financial independence. The dilemma for the KRI, whether as an autonomous federal region within Iraq or an independent entity, is that while the region holds considerable oil and gas assets whose monetisation could secure an independent revenue stream, yet that was beset by major challenges. Key among them was the ambiguity of the Iraqi constitution regarding the development of the country oil and gas resources which led to a significant conflict between the KRG and the Government of Iraq (GoI) with major effects on their development. A second major challenge was that in the early years following the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the region was largely unexplored and with high potential, but while being mostly a mountainous complicated and raised the costs of oil and gas exploration. Moreover, the KRI being landlocked substantially raised these costs as the monetisation of oil and gas resources required export routes through, and a dependence on, either federal Iraq, Turkey, or Iran. Despite these challenges, the KRG pursued an independent policy for the development of the region’s oil and gas sector, secured in 2014 an independent export route through Turkey that promised to bring about financial independence and with that a foundation for state building. This piece draws upon the author’s work on the subject and ultimately argues that the pursuit of financial independence for the KRI through an independent oil policy was not a viable or sustainable endeavour. It does so by reviewing each of the pieces of the jigsaw that allowed the KRG to establish its independent oil and gas policy, and how the compromises and decisions made to secure each of these pieces have ultimately made the jigsaw both unstable and unsustainable. However, this does not mean the loss of a crucial foundation of state building for the KRI, but achieving this requires a paradigm shift in the relationship between the KRG and the GoI based on a shared vision for nature of the country’s federal structure.