DUBAI:

Iraq resumed pumping crude from the Kirkuk fields through a Kurdish-controlled pipeline to Turkey last week to extract gas associated with oil and avoid damage to reservoirs, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Tuesday.

Oil flow had stopped in March because of a dispute between Abadi’s government and the Iraqi Kurdistan selfrule authorities over the control of the Kurdish oil resources. The flow resumed last week without an explanation from the government.

“We have to produce oil in order to get gas,” Abadi told a news conference in Baghdad. “This is a very old oil field, if this field does not produce oil, it can be degraded.”

He added: “So we were told to pump oil from Kirkuk to Ceyhan,” the Turkish Mediterranean port where the pipeline delivers crude from Kirkuk and other fields in the Kurdish region for international oil sales.