Kurdish forces seized two oilfields in northern Iraq and took over operations from a state-run oil company on Friday, while Kurdish politicians formally suspended their participation in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government, Reuters reported. The Kurdish forces took over production facilities at the Bai Hassan and Kirkuk oilfields near the city of Kirkuk, the oil ministry in Baghdad said. It called on the Kurds to withdraw immediately to avoid "dire consequences".The two oilfields have a combined production capacity of 450,000 barrels per day but have not been producing significant volumes since March when Baghdad's Kirkuk-Ceyhan export pipeline was sabotaged.
An oil ministry spokesman in Baghdad described the takeover as dangerous and irresponsible.
"We ask the people responsible for this disorderly behaviour to withdraw immediately from these sites in order to avoid dire consequences," the spokesman, Asim Jihad, said.
Kurdish authorities said they had moved to "secure the oilfields of Bai Hassan and the Makhmour area" of the giant Kirkuk oilfield after hearing that the oil ministry planned to disrupt a pipeline designed to pump oil from Makhmour.
Bai Hassan and the Makhmour part of the Kirkuk oilfield had been under the control of the state's North Oil Company (NOC).
"The Kurdish Regional Government learned on Thursday that some officials in the federal Ministry of Oil gave orders to a number of NOC staff to cease their cooperation with the KRG and to dismantle or render inoperable the valves on the new pipeline," the Kurdish authorities said in a statement.
"The nearby Bai Hassan field and the other fields located in Makhmour district are now safely under KRG management," it said.
The statement said NOC staff had been told they should cooperate with Kurdish authorities from Saturday or leave and that any production at the fields seized by the Kurds would be used primarily to supply the domestic market.
The Baghdad ministry's spokesman Jihad rejected Kurdish assertions that they had acted to protect oil infrastructure, saying the ministry had worked to raise output at the fields and increase investment in local gasoline production.
"The ministry rejects their irresponsible accusations as these workers are doing their best in order to supply the gasoline," he said. "Such a statement is ridiculous."