The central Iraqi government will meet with its Kurdish counterparts soon to talk about oil exports from the now semi-autonomous region that tried to gain independence last year. Reuters reported , citing Iraq’s oil minister, Thamer Ghadhban, that the two sides will also discuss the increase of oil production from the fields around the northern city of Kirkuk by as much as 50 percent. The fields around Kirkuk, as well as the city itself, were until the fall of 2017 under the control of the Kurdish government, although the area was not officially part of the Kurdistan region. However, after the ill-fated independence referendum, which led to a strong reaction from Baghdad, the central Iraqi authorities regained control of the oil fields that account for a sizeable portion of Iraq’s oil total. Around 300,000 bpd of crude oil previously pumped and exported in the Kirkuk province to the Turkish […]