The Iraqi Oil Ministry is seeking an agreement to resume the flow of oil via the Kurdistan Region’s pipeline, but negotiations are ongoing, the spokesman for Iraqi Oil Ministry Asem Jahd told al-Sumaria News.

He said the oil fields from north of Kirkuk have the daily output of 550,000 barrels of oil, which can be exported through the Kurdistan Region’s pipeline to the port of Ceyhan.

Some other Kirkuk oil fields have the capacity to export 150,000 barrels of oil, he added.

According to Jahd, the Kurdistan Region’s opposition to Baghdad and various other issues between the two sides led to the disagreements.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) says it has not had access to the Kirkuk oil fields since Iraqi forces retook control of the oilfields from the Kurds in mid-October 2017 following Kurdish referendum on independence on September 25.

The five fields of Baba Gurgur, Havana, Bai Hassan, Jambu, and Khabbaz have a total output of around 470,000 barrels of oil per day.

Kirkuk is believed to have close to 8.7 billion barrels of oil – approximately 30 percent of Iraq’s total oil reserves.

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