BP PLC is still providing technical assistance to Iraq’s state-owned North Oil Company on the giant Kirkuk oil field, despite moves by the Kurdistan Regional Government to exert more control over Iraq’s prize northern oil field, Michael Townsend, BP’s head of Middle East operations, said Monday. Kirkuk lies in an area whose control is disputed between Baghdad and the government of Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region, but it fell under the protection of the KRG after Islamic militants overran parts of northern Iraq this summer. In July, Kurdish Peshmerga forces took control of production facilities at two key oil fields near the northern city of Kirkuk, expelling employees of the federal-government controlled NOC after it accused them of seeking to sabotage recently built pipeline infrastructure.