ERBIL
Technical work has started on a pipeline connecting oil produced in Kirkuk to a main pipeline in Ceyhan, southern Turkey, the Kurdish Regional Government's Prime Minister said on Thursday.
Nechirvan Barzani, Prime Minister of Kurdish Regional Government, briefed ministers about oil shipping and income sharing at a meeting of the Council of Ministers.
According to a statement from the government, Barzani said that the government will export 250,000 barrels of oil per day from Erbil and 300,000 barrels from Kirkuk.
Both operations will be under the control of the central government in Baghdad.
Barzani said that technical work has also begun to deliver Kirkuk's oil production to the Ceyhan pipeline.
He added that the regional government's share of income has not been sent for years.
According to documents from the Iraqi Ministry of Finance, the central government is in debt to the Kurdish Regional Government to the tune of $13 billion.
Barzani concluded that the central government will pay the peshmerga salaries from now on and that this was a big gain for the regional government.
The Kurdish Regional Government and the central government in Iraq have previously had disputes over energy resources in northern Iraq.
On Nov. 14, the Iraqi Oil Minister, Adil Abdul-Mahdi, announced that the two sides had reached an agreement.
In accordance with the agreement, the Iraqi government will pay the Kurdish Regional Government $500 million to begin with, and the Iraq Kurdish region will export 150,000 barrels per day of oil through Iraq.
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