Iraq Gov't Hopes To End Oil Dispute With Kurds

The Baghdad government maintained those deals were illegal. The Oil Ministry threatened to blacklist the international companies involved.

For his part, al-Shahristani reiterated that the central government will not reimburse the companies for their investment and that the Kurds are the ones who must pay them.

The two fields are Tawke, which is being developed by independent Norwegian oil company DNO and Taq Taq which is being run by the Swiss-Canadian Addax Petroleum Corp. Turkey's Genel Enerji is the partner for both of the two investments.

The two fields are now pumping nearly 100,000 barrels a day and are expected to reach a total capacity of 250,000 barrels per day within a year.

During the news conference, al-Shahristani said his ministry will conclude its first bidding round to develop eight oil and gas fields by the end of this month.

The names of the winners will be announced in a ceremony on June 29-30.

Last year, Iraq pre-qualified 35 oil companies out of the 120 that applied to participate in the bidding round. Topping the list are the world's oil giants: Royal Dutch Shell PLC, BP PLC, ExxonMobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and Total.