SOUTH KURDISTAN (IRAQ) : Kurdistan to cut oil output by 250 thousand barrels per day unless Baghdad bears companies’ costs

Ninanews 10.3.2013 – Hewler / Erbil – :  Kurdistan Region’s Ministry of Natural Resources said that it will not abide to produce and export 250,000 barrels of oil a day unless Baghdad bears the costs of foreign oil companies.

In a statement to the press on Saturday, March 9, Natural Resources Ministry’s Advisor, Hussein Ballo, said that Erbil is not willing t send 250,000 barrels of oil a day to Baghdad,net unless the later bears the costs and loans of oil companies working oil exploration in the Region.

He added that agreements between Erbil and Baghdad stipulate that the Iraqi Federal Government pays the dues of foreign companies working in the Region’s oil exploration against Erbil produces 250 thousand barrels of oil a day.

“We will not send this quantity of oil unless the Federal Government pays loans and dues of foreign companies.  Iraqi Kurdish MP Muhsin al-Saadoun on Friday, pointed that Kurdistan region will export its oil without handing over its revenues to the Iraqi federal government, for adopting the general budget without allocations of oil companies’ fees. The National Alliance, on the other side, threatened that these amounts will be deducted from the Kurdish region’s local budget allocated in the federal one.The Iraqi parliament passed the country’s 2013 budget on Thursday despite a boycott by Kurdish members in protest at the amount allotted to pay oil companies operating in the autonomous north, lawmakers said.