A move to issue regular payments to oil companies operating in the Kurdish north of Iraq should help them endure the market downturn, the government said. The Ministry of Natural Resources of the semiautonomous Kurdish government said it would issue the first batch of regular payments to oil companies by the middle of next month. The decision came after a Kurdish oil council approved the allocation of between $75 million and $100 million of the revenue generated from direct oil sales. The Kurdish government said it recognized that international oil companies are struggling to maintain normal operations because of the lack of payments during a depressed oil economy. “Regular payments will allow […]