Kirkuk oil starts to flow into Kurdistan A worker maintains production at the North Oil Company in Kirkuk. A worker for Iraq’s state-run North Oil Company tends to a pipeline in Kirkuk, in 2003. (ED KASHI/Corbis) Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region has begun pumping crude from Kirkuk into its own independent oil infrastructure, days after Kurdish Peshmerga forces took full control of fields that have long been managed by Iraq’s federal government.The flow of oil signals the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) intention to continue solidifying its control over Kirkuk, the epicenter of a decade-long territorial dispute. The move is also likely to exacerbate the political divisions between Iraqi Prime ..