( Gulf ) - Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) has signed new oil deals in defiance of Baghdad's wishes but the landlocked region still needs central government approval before it can export any oil.
The semi-autonomous KRG approved four oil and gas production sharing agreements with international oil companies this week, as it moved ahead with plans to lift output to a million barrels per day from just a few thousand barrels in about five years.
Iraq's Oil Minister Hussain Al Shahristani said last week that all deals signed by the KRG since February were illegal and that crude from the deals could not be exported legally.
Iraq's draft oil law gives Baghdad's State Oil Marketing Organisation (Somo) the exclusive right to export, he said. The KRG said its deals were legal and Somo had no such right in the draft law.
The spat over export rights was of little consequence, as no sovereign government from surrounding countries was likely to strike an import deal with the KRG without Baghdad's approval, analysts said.
"Getting oil and gas out of any landlocked region is always problematic," said Julian Lee, senior energy analyst at London's Centre for Global Energy Studies. "And it is distinctly problematic for the Kurdish region, especially if it is seen as carrying out that policy regardless of Baghdad."
Turkey would be the favoured export route, as a pipeline already exists from Iraq's northern oilfields to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. But Baghdad holds the export agreement with Ankara, while Turkey has a sizeable Kurdish minority and is suspicious of the progress of Iraq's Kurdish region.