The share of Rosneft Group Subsidiaries in PSA will be 80%, the amount of payments for the projects farm-in and geological information for each of five blocks ranges from 40 mln. USD to 110 mln. USD and may total to 400 mln.USD.

Instead, with the planned referendum just days away, Russian state oil giant Rosneft announced its latest investment last week, to help Iraqi Kurdistan develop its natural gas industry, for domestic supplies and eventual export.

Russia’s state-controlled oil company is in discussions with Iraqi Kurdistan over helping it develop oilfields in disputed territory at the heart of tensions with Baghdad, in a move that pitches Moscow into one of Iraq’s oldest faultlines.

Crude oil flows from the Kirkuk fields in northern Iraq were briefly disrupted on Thursday after a Kurdish faction seized a pumping facility in protest at the policies of Baghdad and Erbil, adding a new threat to Iraq’s attempts to comply with Opec’s agreed cuts.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Jawad Kadhim Al Abadi and his Kurdish counterpart, Nechirvan Barzani, have agreed to split the proposed export volume of 150,000 bopd from Kirkuk’s Baba Gorgor and Khabbaz fields between them. On Tuesday, Kurdish news outlet Rudaw also claimed an agreement on Kirkuk oil had been reached.

After years of friction, the two sides last week struck a deal in which Kurds will give half of their overall oil shipments to the federal government and Baghdad will pay overdue civil servants' salaries in the region.

ShaMaran Petroleum resumes oil production in Kurdistan

Kurdish Oil Income Reaches $4bn

U.S. Court Scraps Order to Seize Kurdish Oil Cargo in Gulf of Mexico

Kurds increase pipeline capacity to 200,000 bpd