Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region expects to start
exporting its oil along a new pipeline to the Turkish border by August 2013,
defying Baghdad in a long-running dispute over who controls the country's oil
sales.
The Kurdistan region, which has its own government and
armed forces, has already clashed with Iraq's central government over autonomy
and oil rights, and halted its crude exports in April after accusing Baghdad of
not making due payments.
"In August 2013 we will be able to directly
export crude from the Kurdish region's fields," Reuters quoted Oil
Minister Ashti Hawrami as saying at an oil conference in Kurdistan over the
weekend.
"We will be responsible for exporting oil. It
will still be Iraqi oil."
The dispute between Baghdad and the Kurdish capital
Arbil is part of a broader political crisis in Iraq, where a fragile government
among Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish blocs is struggling to overcome deep splits
over power-sharing.
Baghdad says only the central government's oil
authorities have the right to control oil exports, and dismisses contracts
signed with the Kurdistan Regional Government as illegal, while the KRG says it
has the right to develop its own oilfields.
Hawrami said once direct exports begin Kurdistan would
take the 17% of revenues the region is allowed from Iraq's national budget and
pass the rest to the federal government, Reuters reported.
The minister said the first stage of the pipeline
would be completed by October this year to carry crude from the Taq Taq
oilfield. The second phase would connect to the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline with a
capacity of 1 million barrels per day by August next year though Turkey's port.
He said Kurdistan was also developing plans to build a
separate pipeline that could connect to a refinery in Turkey's Ceyhan port by
2014.
"We envisage the building of a new pipeline
taking Kurdish oil to Ceyhan port and there will be a large refinery ... Some
of the oil will go to that refinery and additional oil will go to international
market," he said.
Turkey, which shares a border with Kurdistan, has
increasingly courted Iraqi Kurds as its relations with the Shi'ite-led central
government in Baghdad have soured. Turkey is a major investment and trading
partner for Iraq, especially for Kurdistan.
In its war of words with Baghdad, Kurdistan leaders
have threatened to consider breaking away from the central government of
Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri Maliki, accusing him of attempting to consolidate
power at the expense of the Sunni and Kurdish minorities.
Since the last American troops left Iraq in December
the disputed areas between Kurdistan and Baghdad have been seen as a potential
flashpoint for conflict as tensions between the two regions simmer without the
buffer of a US military presence.
Last month Kurdistan stopped oil exports because it
said Baghdad was not fulfilling agreements to pay foreign oil companies working
in the region.