Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government is intending to publish the contracts it has signed with foreign companies in a bid to solve a dispute with the central government in Baghdad, the KRG said on its Web site.
The Kurdish government also said that it had already sent two contracts to Baghdad signed independently with Norway's DNO International ASA (DNO.OS) and Genel Enerji of Turkey to develop the Tawke and Taq Taq oil fields respectively.
Baghdad has been at odds with the KRG since 2007 over several oil contracts signed by the Kurds with small foreign companies to develop oil fields in the region. Baghdad said these deals were null and void because they weren't seen or approved by the federal government, while the Kurds argue that they were in line with the country's constitution.
The KRG wants Baghdad to pay companies the costs of developing these two fields as well as the profit in order to resume exports from both of them which it suspended since October last year.
Iraq's federal oil minister, Hussein al-Shahristani, recently told a local television network that Baghdad was ready to look at bills of the cost of work executed by the two companies producing oil from the two fields but would not pay them profits.
Shahristani also said that finding a solution to Kurdish oil contracts would take longer, but a resumption of crude oil exports from the two fields could take place soon.
Last month, the KRG said it was ready to settle the dispute with Baghdad, and said it was willing to resume oil exports provided the federal government agrees to reimburse foreign companies.
The KRG's oil minister Ashti Hawrami told Dow Jones Newswires last week that up to 100,000 barrels a day could be exported now from the two fields, and this could be increased gradually to 250,000 barrels a day by the end of this year.