Iraqi Kurdistan to keep pumping oil exports to September 15: sources

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's Kurdistan will keep pumping its share of national oil exports until September 15, extending a deadline for the central government to make disputed payments to companies working in the autonomous region, Kurdish sources said on Saturday.

Kurdistan had warned it would stop oil shipments again at the start of September over the payments, but two Kurdish sources said the region had decided to give Baghdad more time for payment paperwork to be sorted out.

"We decided to extend the deadline for pumping crude to September 15 as a goodwill gesture, and to give Baghdad more time to resolve the payment issue," one source with Kurdistan's natural resources ministry told Reuters.

The extension signaled tensions were easing in Baghdad's long-running feud with Kurdistan over oil rights, territory and power-sharing, a dispute that is testing the country's uneasy federal union.

In April Kurdistan halted exports, saying Baghdad had not made payments to companies working there, but it restarted shipments on August 7 with a warning they could be halted again in a month if there were no payments.

Iraq says Kurdistan's oil shipments have fluctuated around 100,000 to 120,000 barrels per day since they restarted, below the 175,000 bpd that Baghdad says was agreed with Kurdistan.

"We want to send a message to Baghdad that we in Kurdistan are keen to help boost Iraq's exports. If the reply on the message was positive, then we will increase export levels from the region," the source said.

Iraq approved a payment of close to $560 million to oil producers operating in the north in return for their investment costs to develop oilfields in the Kurdish region. But officials are still waiting for the go-ahead.

Kurdish authorities say due payments that should be approved by central government could reach $1.5 billion, two Kurdish sources said.

Kurdish oil exports make up a fraction of Iraq's shipments, but the payment dispute feeds into a wider conflict between Iraqi Arabs and Kurds over autonomy, oil and land that risks upsetting Iraq's fragile sectarian balance.

(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed; editing by Patrick Markey and Mark Potter)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iraqi-kurdistan-keep-pumping-oil-exports-september-15-120917488--finance.html

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