Iraq confirms to Russia that Russian oil companies will soon be able to resume projects in Kurdistan - energy minister

BAGHDAD. Feb 27 (Interfax) - The Iraqi and Kurdish authorities have resolved all existing disagreements between them, which will allow Russian companies to soon resume oil and gas projects in Kurdistan, Russian Energy Minister Sergei Tsivilev told journalists following the Russian-Iraqi Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic and Scientific-Technical Cooperation, which he co-chairs.

"We received crucial information [from the Iraqi authorities], and both the minister and the prime minister assured us that the issues related to disagreements between the federal government [of Iraq] and the Kurdistan government have been resolved. This is very important for us, because Russian companies had entered Kurdistan earlier and had agreements with the Kurdistan government. They invested money in fields located in Kurdistan. Then, due to disagreements between the federal government and the Kurdish government, their projects were halted and frozen. Now, we have been assured that all disagreements have been resolved, everything has been worked out. These projects will start operating literally in the near future," Tsivilev said.

Previously, Gazprom Neft and Rosneft were present in Kurdistan.

As reported earlier, the Iraqi Oil Ministry is in the final stages of procedures to resume crude exports from Kurdistan through the Ceyhan terminal. The ministry is calling on regional authorities to transfer these volumes from active fields to the state-owned SOMO oil marketing company for continued exports via the Iraq-Turkey pipeline in accordance with contracts signed with companies.