Iraqi Kurdish region says it expects "historic" oil windfall

May 10, 2009, 8:10 GMT

Arbil, Iraq - The government of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq announced on Sunday that it expected a 'historic' windfall from oil exports from the region, despite a dispute with Baghdad over the exports.

The regional government's Ministry of Natural Resources on Sunday said the Kurdish region would export roughly 100,000 barrels of crude oil a day in the next month from two oil fields, days after an official from the Oil Ministry in Baghdad denied there had been an agreement on exports.

The issue of oil exports from the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq remains a source of dispute between Arbil and Baghdad, and an oil law governing the export of crude has been held up in the Iraqi parliament since 2007.

In a statement carried on Sunday by most newspapers in Arbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, the Kurdish government said it would export about 60,000 barrels of oil a day to Turkey from the Tawke field, near the city of Dohuk, some 460 kilometres north of Baghdad.

An additional 40,000 barrels a day would flow from the Taq Taq field to Turkey, the statement said, noting that the proceeds from the oil would 'benefit of Iraqi people as a whole.'

'This historic achievement marks a record in the Kurdistani regional government's efforts to increase Iraqi oil production and revenues for the benefit of all the Iraqi people,' the statement said.

In remarks published in Iraqi newspapers Saturday, Assem Jihad, a spokesman for the Oil Ministry in Baghdad said there 'had been no agreement between Arbil and Baghdad on oil exports from the province of Kurdistan.'

The central Iraqi government's Oil Ministry had previously said that agreements on oil exports from the Kurdish region 'were signed illegally, without the knowledge of the federal government.'

Kurdish officials say the agreements were legal, and were struck in accordance with the Iraqi constitution.