Kurdistan exports nearly zero as payment hopes thin

ERBIL - Oil producing companies in the Kurdistan region of Iraq have cut exports to a trickle, as the outlook for payments from Baghdad to the region's oil industry seems increasingly bleak.

A senior official with Iraq's state-run North Oil Company (NOC), which handles exports through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, says that exports from Kurdistan producers have dropped to 4,200 barrels per day (bpd) as of Tuesday, down from 25,000 bpd on Dec. 15. In recent months, Kurdistan had pumped as much as 190,000 barrels in a day.