ARBIL: Oil exports from Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region via the federal government have been slashed in the latest chapter of a long-running payments row, a spokesman said yesterday.
Kurdistan government spokesman Safin Dizai said that foreign companies working in the region stopped their exports over 350bn Iraqi dinars (about $291.6m) he said they were owed by the federal government.
“We sent a letter to the government and we asked the government to pay, but they are refusing to pay,” Dizai said.
Exports of less than 5,000 barrels per day (b/d) are nonetheless still ongoing, he said — significantly down from over 100,000b/d in past months. “The companies will resume exporting oil when the government pays,” Dizai said.
Kurdistan halted oil exports to the federal government on April 1 over $1.5bn it said was owed to foreign oil companies in the region that Baghdad allegedly withheld, but announced in early August that they would be restarted.
The region reached a deal with Baghdad in mid-September under which it would export 140,000b/d for the rest of that month and 200,000b/d for the remainder of the year, and would meanwhile receive an “advance” of one trillion Iraqi dinars (about $833m). Faisal Abdullah, spokesman for Hussein Al Shahristani, Iraq’s deputy prime minister for energy affairs, said that the federal government had paid Kurdistan 650bn dinars (about $541.6m), and was awaiting records on payments to companies in the region to pay the remaining 350bn dinars.
AFP
