Baghdad has ordered North Oil Company (NOC) to stop feeding crude from its Kirkuk oil field via the Kurdish-controlled pipeline to Ceyhan in Turkey, in a move to pressurise the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Oil minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi said the central government had decided to stop flows via the KRG network until Erbil returned to the previous revenue-sharing agreement – which the Kurds effectively shelved last September when they stopped transferring any oil from Baghdad’s State Marketing Organisation – or a new deal is negotiated.
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