Azerbaijan offers Iraq access to Europe gas pipelines

AFP

Azerbaijan has offered Iraq access to the "Southern Gas Corridor" connecting the Caspian Sea to the European Union to help Baghdad sell natural gas to Europe, Baku's foreign minister said Monday.

Elmar Mammadyarov told journalists in the Iraqi capital that officials in Baghdad had already expressed interest in joining the massive project, which is supported by the United States and aims to reduce Europe's dependence on gas from Russia.

"It's a huge project ... and it's open if Iraq is also interested to deliver their own natural gas," Mammadyarov said at a joint news conference with his Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zebari.

"The project is there, so if any other countries ... want to join the Southern Gas Corridor, including Iraq, who already expressed some interest for this project, we are ready to start negotiations." Gas pumped from the immense new Shah Deniz II field will travel across Azerbaijan and Georgia and across Turkey through a new Trans-Anatolian Pipeline, which is set to be a key part of the Southern Gas Corridor from the Caspian Sea to Turkey and the EU.

Russia, meanwhile, backs a new pipeline under construction known as South Stream that aims to transport 63 billion cubic metres under the Black Sea to Europe.

Turkey says wants to draw Baghdad into Kurdish oil deal

Reuters       Humeyra Pamuk

Turkey said on Monday it stood by a bilateral oil deal with Iraq's Kurdistan region that bypassed central government but wanted to win Baghdad's support by drawing it into the arrangement.

Reuters reported that Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan signed a multi-billion-dollar energy package last week, infuriating a central Baghdad government which claims sole authority over Iraqi oil exports and is wary of any moves that could extend political autonomy to the region.

Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz met Iraq's deputy prime minister for energy, Hussain al-Shahristani, in Baghdad on Sunday to try to mend ties with a federal government which says independent Kurdish oil exports would be illegal. The affair has soured relations between Ankara and Baghdad.

"We stand by the agreement we did with northern Iraq but we hope this can be carried out through a three-way mechanism," Yildiz told a conference in Arbil, the capital city of the Kurdistan region (KRG). "As Turkey, we are trying to move this forward in a careful and courteous way."

"We also would like to have the consent of the Central Government of Iraq for the commercial export of oil from the KRG to Turkey and start a trilateral cooperation scheme that will be beneficial to all."

The Kurdish north of Iraq has enjoyed autonomy since the 1990-1991 Gulf War when a U.S.-led coalition drove Iraqi occupying troops out of Kuwait.

Iraq Kurds to Pump Oil to Turkey in Truce With Baghdad

Bloomberg        Selcan Hacaoğlu & Onur Ant

Iraq’s Kurds plan to start pumping oil to Turkey next month via a pipeline controlled by the central government in Baghdad, signaling an easing of their dispute over resources, according to two people familiar with the plan.

The new line will take Kurdish oil into the existing pipe that runs from Kirkuk in Iraq to Turkey’s Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, initially carrying 150,000 barrels a day starting in December, according to the Turkish energy industry officials who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public. An Iraqi energy industry manager, who requested anonymity for the same reason, said the state oil company has accounted for the extra oil in 2014 plans.

Ashti Hawrami, the Kurdish Regional Government’s natural resources minister, said at a press conference last month that the 40-kilometer pipeline will have a capacity of 300,000 barrels a day. Mehmet Sepil, president of London-listed Genel Energy, said at the same conference that the pipeline from Dohuk to Fishkabur on the Turkish border will carry 200,000 barrels a day from its Tawke and Taq Taq fields.

The Iraqi official said the Kurdish oil will be metered when it feeds into the main pipeline, at Fishkabur near the Turkish border, and again when it arrives at Ceyhan.

The agreement signals a truce on the issue between the Iraqi Kurds, who say they should have control over oil and gas resources in the north, and the Baghdad government, which argues that all energy transactions need central approval.

Iraq’s Kurdish region pursues ties with Turkey — for energy revenue and independence

The Washington Post   Ben Van Heuvelen

As the rest of Iraq descends into a crisis of deepening violence, the autonomous enclave of Kurdistan is enlisting the help of an unlikely ally, Turkey, to reach for a long-delayed dream of independence.

In many ways, Iraqi Kurdistan already acts like a sovereign state. Kurdish authorities provide all public services, command their own army and control their own borders — including their heavily guarded southern border with ­Arab-majority provinces of Iraq. In Irbil, the Kurdish capital, most government buildings fly the Kurdish flag — not the flag of Iraq — and many members of the younger generation never learned Arabic and speak only Kurdish.

Until now, however, the Kurds have remained tightly tied to Baghdad because they depend on the Iraqi treasury for the vast majority of their regional budget.

That could soon change.

Putting aside years of hostility, Turkish and Kurdish leaders are quietly implementing an energy partnership agreement, signed earlier this year, that promises to provide the Kurdistan region with an independent stream of oil revenue.

The first major step in the plan is a pipeline that runs directly to Turkey, beyond Baghdad’s reach, and that will begin operating by the end of the year, according to the Kurdistan region’s minister of natural resources, Ashti Hawrami.

“It is our duty as Iraqis to pursue export routes for oil and gas, to secure our future,” Hawrami said.

Turkey, Iraqi Kurdistan clinch major energy pipeline deals

REUTERS        Hümeyra PAMUK & Orhan COSKUN

Iraqi Kurdistan has finalized a comprehensive package of deals with Turkey to build multi-billion dollar oil and gas pipelines to ship the autonomous region's rich hydrocarbon reserves to world markets, sources involved in talks said on Wednesday.

The deals, which could have important geo-political consequences for the Middle East, could see Kurdistan export some 2 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil to world markets and at least 10 billion cubic meters per year of gas to Turkey.

Such a relationship would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, when Ankara enjoyed strong ties with Iraq's central Baghdad government and was deep in a decades-long fight with Kurdish militants on its own soil.

But Turkey imports almost all of its energy needs and growing demand means it faces a ballooning deficit, making the resources over its southeastern border hard to ignore.

During a visit to Istanbul last week by Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) prime minister Nechirvan Barzani, both sides agreed on the fundamentals of the deals and mapped out technical details for a second oil pipeline and a gas route from Iraq's north to Turkey, sources involved in the talks said.

Baghdad says still opposes KRG oil pipeline

Iraq PM Maliki and Iraq Deputy Prime Minister for Energy Hussain al-Shahristani

REUTERS   Ahmed Rasheed and Peg Mackey

Baghdad said it is still firmly opposed to Iraqi Kurdistan's plan for an independent oil pipeline through Turkey, insisting that only the central government has the right to export crude.

Iraq's deputy prime minister for energy, Hussain al-Shahristani, told Reuters he had conveyed Baghdad's views to Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz.

"Turkey is aware of Iraq's concern and total rejection of that (KRG pipeline) plan. We have reminded Turkey that this is in breach of the agreement between the two countries that regulates exports from Iraq through the Turkish pipeline," al-Shahristani told Reuters.

"Turkey assured us they respect that agreement and they will not allow any export of Iraqi crude without the permission of the federal government in

Turkey's pipe dreams

Arabian Business       Lionel Mok

Turkey has continued to make the headlines in the Middle East’s oil and gas industry over the last several months due to a number of factors which include the growing divide between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Federal Government of Iraq (FGI); and the recent signing of the Trans-Adriatic Pipeiline (TAP) and Trans-Anatolian Pipelines (TANAP).

Despite its unremarkable national oil production industry that produces, on average, 50,000 barrels per day (bpd) from reserves that total approximately 270 million barrels of oil, the country has made itself critical to the world’s energy market, while also managing to satisfy growing domestic consumption of over 700,000 bpd.

Turkey owes its gravitational pull in the energy market to its physical geography. As the only landmass standing between the Middle East and Europe, and also the Black and Mediterranean Seas, Turkey is well positioned to become an energy hub and a transit point.

The country is in proximity to 71.8% of the world’s proven gas reserves and 72.7% of the world’s proven oil reserves. It neighbors Iran, Iraq the recently discovered Eastern Mediterranean reserves near Lebanon; and it is less than 250 kilometers away from the Caspian Sea, home of the world’s largest oil discovery in the last thirty years.

By 2004, the Turkish straits of the Bosphorus and the Dardanalles, had the capacity to transit 3.4 million barrels of oil to European markets every day. At the same time, a terminal on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast at Ceyhan, facilitates oil exports from northern Iraq via a pipeline from Kirkuk and from Azerbaijan through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. The Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline is Turkey’s largest, with a capacity of 1.65 million bpd.

The planned TANAP will include a natural gas pipeline system running from the Georgia-Turkey border to the Turkey-Greece border, while the TAP, will transport the same natural gas from Greece via Albania and the Adriatic Sea to Italy and further to markets throughout Western Europe.

Iraq to Turn up Oil Tap This Year - Output to Rise by 300,000 - 400,000 Barrels a Day by 2014

The Wall Street Journal

Output to Rise by 300,000 - 400,000 Barrels a Day by 2014

Four years after war-scarred Iraq enlisted major oil companies to develop its oil fields, the country is about to turn up the tap.

Output is set to rise sharply in coming months with help from new oil fields in the south, Hussein al Shahristani, the Iraqi deputy prime minister for energy, said in Dubai on Tuesday.

The biggest contribution will come from the gigantic Majnoon field, where Royal Dutch Shell
PLC last week began testing production. Output there is expected to rise to almost 200,000 barrels a day before the end of the year, Mr. Shahristani said at a conference in Dubai.

The Halfaya field in southeastern Iraq should add another 50,000 barrels per day before the end of the year.

"There are increases in other fields, so in total we should add at least 300,000, perhaps more like 400,000 barrels," he said.

As Iraq is producing about 3.3 million barrels a day at present, that would make about 3.6 million or 3.7 million by the end of the year, he said.

The best market for the new oil in terms of cost would be Asia, he said, adding that Iraq wants to ship to different places as insurance against interruptions in trade routes. Iraq is also looking to ship oil through Syria along an established route once the civil war ends there.

Iraq Central Government Threatens to Cut Revenue to Kurds Over Pipeline to Turkey

Bloomberg Business Week

Iraq central government threatened to cut oil revenue to the Kurdish north in a deepening standoff over a new export pipeline that companies from DNO International ASA (DNO) to Genel Energy Plc (GENL) plan to use to ship crude from the region.

The government in Baghdad may refuse to give the 17 percent of annual earnings from oil sales allocated to the semi-autonomous Kurdish provinces if they bypass central authorities and start operating a link through Turkey by year-end, Hussain al-Shahristani, deputy prime minister for energy affairs, said in an interview in Dubai yesterday.

“We have our options, and you will hear them when we adopt measures, as this is a big loss for Iraq,” he said. “No Iraqi would accept that they take 17 percent of Iraq’s revenue from crude produced outside of Kurdistan and at the same time all of the revenue of the crude produced in Kurdistan.”

 

The Kurdistan Regional Government halted crude exports through the government-run pipeline in December amid a dispute with the Oil Ministry in Baghdad over the sharing of crude sales revenue and payments owed to companies such as DNO and Genel Energy. The Kurds, who are building export pipelines as a step toward self-sufficiency, estimate their oil reserves at 45 billion barrels.

The Iraqi government insists that the Kurds link their new crude export pipeline to the main government pipe at a metering station near the Turkish border, Shahristani said.

“They refused and said they want to link it after the metering station to prevent the Iraqi government from knowing the quantity of crude they are exporting,” he said. “The real problem is that they don’t want anyone to know how much they are producing and selling.” 

Kurdish crude sales to rise as exports reach second Turkish port

Reuters          Julia Payne and Peg Mackey


* Taq Taq crude exports to reach about 60,000 bpd by end June
* Kurdistan to start deliveries to second terminal in Turkey
* Crude in steady stream to Northern Europe


Iraqi Kurdistan's crude oil sales to world markets, deemed illegal by Baghdad, are set to rise by nearly 50 percent next month as trucks start deliveries to a second export terminal in Turkey, industry sources in the region said on Wednesday.

Crude exports from the Taq Taq oilfield in the autonomous northern region to Turkey's Mersin port started at a trickle in early January and have risen to just over 40,000 barrels per day (bpd).

They are expected to hit around 60,000 bpd by the end of June as trucks unload at the neighbouring Dortyol terminal in southern Turkey.

Oil lies at the heart of a feud between the central government and Kurdistan. Baghdad says it alone has the right to control exports and sign deals, while the Kurds say their right to do so is enshrined in Iraq's federal constitution.

In retaliation, Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organisation (SOMO) sent letters warning customers not to touch any oil that had not been marketed by SOMO and the ministry intends to sue producers, namely Anglo-Turkish firm Genel Energy.

Turkey eyes oil, gas deals with Iraqi Kurdistan

Reuters


Turkey is looking to sign commercial contracts this year with Russian and U.S. companies operating in northern Iraq for joint oil and gas exploration, Turkey's Energy Minister Taner Yildiz told Reuters.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan last week discussed U.S. concerns about Turkey's deepening energy ties with Iraqi Kurdistan during meetings in Washington with President Barack Obama.


Minutes before his departure for Washington, Erdogan announced that a Turkish company already had a contract in place with U.S. energy company Exxon Mobil but declined to provide details until after the visit.
Yildiz, who was in Erdogan's delegation, said the discussions with Obama and his team were very positive and fruitful.

"We are likely to be involved with Russian and American companies in northern Iraq for different projects like oil and gas exploration. And this year, state-owned and private companies could sign commercial contracts with northern Iraq," he said in an interview.

He declined to name companies.

Exxon was the first to sign up for exploration deals with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Others including Chevron, Total and Russia's Gazprom Neft have followed.

Turkey-Kurdish oil deal reflects end of post-Ottoman order

David Gardner      Financial Times

Confirmation last week that Turkey plans to buy into the oil and gas wealth of the self-governing Kurdish region of northern Iraq has led to warnings – most stridently from the US – that Ankara is gambling with the break-up of Iraq. Indeed. But there is more at stake than that. Drop a rock in any pool in this febrile region – now hyperconnected in all the wrong ways – and the ripples will reach every shore.

In Iraq, the Kurdistan Regional Government and the national authorities in Baghdad are nowhere near a pact for sharing the country’s potentially huge oil revenues, much less a working model of federal power-sharing – with the Baghdad government of Nouri al-Maliki, a Shia Islamist aligned with Iran, invariably favouring sect and faction above state and nation.

But the future of Iraq is now just part of a discussion about the possible break-up of bits of the Middle East, given new urgency by the disintegration of Syria under the pulverising effect of two years of civil war.

That conflict has prised loose the Kurdish region of northeast Syria, galvanising Turkey into making peace with its own Kurds and drawing Iraqi and Syrian Kurds into an economically dynamic Turkosphere.

That this debate is only just starting suggests just how problematic it is – and how immense its possible consequences. What is in play is the state system that succeeded the Ottoman Empire almost a century ago in Syria and Mesopotamia.

Turkey agrees energy deal with Kurdish north Iraq

Daniel Dombey        Financial Times

Turkey has defied both Washington and Baghdad by agreeing an energy deal with the north of Iraq that the US warns could further fracture the Middle Eastern state, but which Ankara sees as central to its own future.

Several Turkish officials confirm Ankara struck a secretive framework agreement earlier this year with the autonomous Kurdish Regional Government of Northern Iraq for Turkish state energy companies to take stakes in the region’s oil and gasfields. They add the deal is still so sensitive that it is unlikely to be acknowledged publicly until after a visit by prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Washington this week, a trip that takes place against a backdrop of increased tension in Iraq itself.

The agreement, together with Turkey’s political opening towards its own Kurdish population, is set to bolster Ankara’s influence in the energy-rich north of Iraq and could help it generate sufficient energy supplies to meet its ambitious growth targets. Mr Erdogan has previously described the deal as a “win win”.

Kurdish officials welcome closer relations. “Let’s be honest: Turkey is our door to the world,” said one, pointing to the KRG’s problematic ties with other neighbours. “Look at the [strained] situation with Iran, Syria, the rest of Iraq . . . Turkey is a big power in the region and, if it follows good policies like at the moment, why not be an ally?”

But the central Iraqi government in Baghdad says that without its permission the energy agreement violates the Iraqi constitution. A direct pipeline link to Turkey under the deal would give the KRG, which already has its own military force, much greater economic independence than before. At present, the only export pipelines available to the region are federally controlled and the KRG has halted exports through them because of a budget dispute with Baghdad.

Turkey, Iraq warm to new pipeline as supply surges

Today's Zaman

Turkey reiterated its willingness to build a new pipeline in cooperation with energy-rich Iraq for a second time in less than a week after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki made statements aimed at breaking the ice with Ankara following months of hostile rhetoric.

 

The statements come at a time of new oil discoveries in Iraq with the existing pipeline infrastructure starting to fall short of meeting overseas demand, undermining the war-torn country's potential to boost energy exports incomes. Ankara and Baghdad have been at odds over a disagreement between the two to export northern Iraq's oil via Turkish markets. The latest developments, however, enhanced the chance for reconciliation between the two with the central government in Baghdad appearing to be less skeptical about Ankara's engagement with the autonomous Kurdistan region -- or Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) -- to the north. Resource-hungry Turkey has heavily courted Iraqi Kurds regardless of the strife with Baghdad and continues doing so.

In an op-ed article published in Washington Post to mark the 10th year of US invasion in Iraq, Maliki said Baghdad “is committed to good relations with all our neighbors … offering the hand of friendship to Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.” Turkish energy minister Taner Yıldız said in Ankara on Wednesday that the government “is ready to cooperate in building a new pipeline that could serve as an alternative to an existing Baghdad-controlled Kirkuk-Yumurtalık pipeline to Turkey.” Exports via that channel dried up in December -- from a peak of around 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) -- due to a row with Baghdad over payments. Last month Yıldız said the Baghdad government has offered to build a pipeline from the Iraqi oil site of Basra to Ceyhan.

Turkey seeks deeper energy relationship with Iraq and KRG

Orhan Coşkun     Reuters


Turkey would play an active role in any arrangement in Iraq under which crude oil export revenues are shared between the central government and the northern Iraqi Kurdistan region, Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said on Thursday.

Yildiz told Reuters in an interview Turkey stood ready to support an arrangement under which 83 percent of oil export revenue went to Baghdad and the remaining 17 percent went to the government of the autonomous Kurdistan region.

"There is nothing on this issue that would unsettle the Iraqi central government," Yildiz said.
"Turkey would play an active role in giving the 17 percent to northern Iraq and 83 percent to the Iraqi central government."

Oil lies at the heart of a long-running feud between the central government and the autonomous Kurdistan region. Baghdad says it alone has the authority to control exports and sign contracts, while the Kurds say their right to do so is enshrined in Iraq's federal constitution.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) started on the path towards economic independence early this year by exporting small volumes of crude oil by truck to Turkey.

Iraqi oil: Once seen as U.S. boon, now it’s mostly China’s

Sean Cockerham    McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Ten years after the United States invaded and occupied Iraq, the country’s oil industry is poised to boom and make the troubled nation the No.2 oil exporter in the world. But the nation that’s moving to take advantage of Iraq’s riches isn’t the United States. It’s China.

America, with its own homegrown energy bonanza, isn’t going after the petroleum that lies beneath Iraq’s sands nearly as aggressively as is China, a country hungry to fuel its rise as an economic power.

Iraq remains highly unstable in terms of security, infrastructure and politics. Chinese state-owned oil companies appear more willing to put up with that than Americans are.

“The Chinese have a higher tolerance for risk,” said Gal Luft, a co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, a Washington research center focused on energy.

The International Energy Agency expects China to become the main customer for Iraq’s vast oil reserves. Fatih Birol, the agency’s chief economist, recently declared “a new trade axis is being formed between Baghdad and Beijing.” Birol said that about 80 percent of Iraq’s future oil exports were expected to go to Asia, mainly to China.

China in Iraq: winning without a war

Naser AL-Tamimi*        Al Arabiya

Not long ago, Robert Kaplan, the well-known American writer, “complained” in The Wall Street Journal, saying: “... We have liberated Iraq so that Chinese firms can extract its oil.” The sentiment that was expressed by Kaplan was in fact reflecting the evolution of the situation in Iraq, where the Chinese presence was rising strongly. Tellingly, Beijing’s position in Iraq evolved quickly, from among the most outspoken of critics of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, to emerging as one of the biggest economic beneficiaries of the war in Iraq.

China’s Catching-up Game

Ten years after the American invasion, Iraq turned into an important energy / trade partner for China. Indeed, the trade between Iraq and China doubled almost 34 times. The volume of bilateral trade between the two states soared to $17.5 billion by end-2012 from small amount of $ 517 million in 2002. In the same period, the trade between Iraq and the U.S. increased only 5.6 times. The bilateral trade between both countries rose to $ 21.6 billion by end-2012 from $ 3.8 billion in 2002. Last year, China was both the second-largest purchaser of Iraqi exports, $ 12.6bn, (after the U.S. $ 19.6bn) and the second-largest supplier of imports, $ 4.9bn, (after Turkey $ 10.8 bn), according to latest data from the U.N. Comtrade data. The United States still Iraq’s largest trade partners, however the current trends suggest that China will soon overtake America to become Baghdad’s top trade partner.

Turkey is economic winner of Iraq war

Daniel Dombey     Financial Times

ISTANBUL — The Americans won the war, the Iranians won the peace and the Turks won the contracts.

Turkey, which blocked the deployment of U.S. troops through its territory during the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, is emerging 10 years on as one of the prime beneficiaries of the battle for the Iraqi market.

Although Turkey’s relations with Baghdad are increasingly bitter, its exports to Iraq have in the past decade soared by more than 25 percent a year, reaching $10.8 billion in 2012, making Iraq Ankara’s second-most valuable export market after Germany.

Ozgur Altug, an economist at BGC Partners in Istanbul, predicts that as Iraq grows richer because of its oil reserves, demand for Turkish goods will keep climbing — by more than $2 billion a year. Turkish contractors have also been doing rich business, working on about $3.5 billion of construction projects last year, according to businessmen and officials.

One company, Calik Energy, boasts that it is building the two biggest projects in the Iraqi power sector, two gas turbine plants in the Mosul and Karbala regions, earning more than $800 million from the Iraqi government in the process.

While Iran is seen as the most influential outside power in Iraq today, on Baghdad’s streets Turkey’s presence is more visible than that of any other country, with everything from malls to furniture stores to pavement bricks bearing a Turkish trademark.

Iraqi Kurdistan offers improving business environment; tensions with Baghdad remain – country risk report

Maplecroft    Country Risk Report for Iraq

Maplecroft’s Country Risk Report for Iraq focuses on the primary risks to oil and gas companies operating in Iraqi Kurdistan. The report includes in-depth analysis of current political dynamics, including tensions between Erbil and Baghdad, security concerns, legal and regulatory challenges, the human rights and labour rights situation and environmental issues.

Iraq is facing a year of political uncertainty and potential instability. In Iraqi Kurdistan, the relationship between the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) is souring. Meanwhile, an increasingly hostile and intractable confrontation between Erbil and Baghdad over contested territory and Kurdish issuance of oil contracts remains a source of concern for investors. Tensions peaked in November 2012 when both the KRG and federal authorities sent thousands of troops to a disputed border in the Diyala governorate. A de-escalation of the military stand-off has yielded progress but political statements regarding the incident remain vitriolic.

Oil and gas companies have good reason to be interested in Iraqi Kurdistan. Long-term indications suggest that crude production from the north of the country will constitute a rapidly growing share of overall national output, rising from 6.6% in 2012 to 33% by 2020. However, considerable challenges remain, not least the inability of Erbil and Baghdad to agree on the terms of exploration contracts.

Iraqi Kurds woo more oil majors in contest with Baghdad

Julia Payne & Simon Falush       Reuters

Iraqi Kurdistan said it is negotiating with two or three major international companies to operate oilfields and expects to announce the outcome in about a month, in a move likely to further heighten tensions with Baghdad.

The remarks by Natural Resources Minister Ashti Hawrami on Tuesday highlight the autonomous region's resolve to push ahead with development of its oil resources independently of the Baghdad-based central government.

Kurdistan has upset the central government by signing deals directly with oil majors such as Chevron Corp and Exxon Mobil, providing lucrative production-sharing contracts and better operating conditions than in the south of the country.

Last week Hawrami said Kurdistan, which is in the north of Iraq and has run its own administration and armed forces since 1991, had awarded Chevron a stake in the Qara Dagh oil block.

"We are negotiating with two to three other significant companies. They will hopefully be announced in a month or so," Hawrami told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in London.

He also said Exxon Mobil's contentious deal to operate in the autonomous region was on track.