IRAQ’S Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has completed payments to IOCs for March crude oil sales. Buoyed by hefty prepayments and a $150mn loan from Turkey it has shrugged off the impact of 10 days of pipeline-outage in March, with payments rising in value and completed in a timelier manner.

For the first time since the new payment plan was announced in January, payments for the Tawke, Taq Taq and Shaikan fields were all made within the mandated 10-working day timeframe. Overall payments increased to $58.9mn, the highest since the previous flat-rate payment system concluded (see table). (CONTINUED - 753 WORDS)