Kurds To Iraq 'No Pay, No Oil'

'Iraq’s autonomous northern Kurdish region will not resume oil exports until an agreement has been reached with Baghdad on payments for oil companies working in the area, Kurdish Energy Minister Ashti Hawrami said yesterday.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) stopped oil exports on Sunday, accusing the central government of failing to pay producers in the north, the latest clash in a long-running feud over control of oil in the north.
“There is an agreement. You take and pay. They want to take but not to pay. How can that be?” Hawrami said in a telephone interview.
“Oil exports will not start again unless there is an agreement on the payment policy,” he told Reuters.
The KRG warned last week it would stop oil exports - which it had reduced to 50,000 bpd - because of a lack of payments from Baghdad.
Tensions between the central government and the Kurdish region rose last year when Hawrami announced an oil deal with US oil major Exxon Mobil.
Baghdad maintains that it alone has the right to export oil while the KRG says it should have control of oil in its region.
Earlier yesterday, Iraq’s Oil Minister Abdul Kareem Luaibi said Exxon had sent a second letter to the oil ministry confirming its decision to freeze its oil deals with the Kurdish autonomous region.
Hawrami challenged the existence of the letter and said the KRG was in contact with Exxon on a daily basis.'