MOSCOW (Reuters) – Iraqi Kurdistan and the federal government have managed to settle their oil disputes, which would allow Russian companies to restart their projects in the region, TASS news agency reported Russia’s Energy Minister Sergei Tsivilev as saying.
One of the companies, which suspended works in the region, was Russia’s largest oil producer Rosneft. It halted some operations due to security reasons as it conducted works near the border with Syria.
Resumption of Kurdish oil exports has been a key stumbling block in relations between the region and federal authorities.
The Iraqi oil minister Hayan Abdel-Ghani said on Monday, that Iraq was waiting for Turkey’s approval to restart the oil flows from the Iraqi Kurdistan region, hoping to resume it in couple of two days.
Russia’s energy minister said that he received information about resolution to the differences between the region and the federal government, TASS reported.
“This is very important for us, since our companies operate in the region and invested a lot in projects. But then, due to disagreements between the federal government and (Iaqi) Kurdistan, these projects were suspended,” he said according to TASS.
He also said that Russia’s state-owned company, Zarubezhneft, sought to return to Iraq, Interfax news agency reported. It left the country in early 1990s following Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait.
(Reporting by Olesya Astakhova; writing by Vladimir Soldatkin, editing by Alexandra Hudson and Tomasz Janowski)
