ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is ready to send its 50,000 barrels of oil allocated for domestic consumption to Baghdad if the Iraqi government provides subsidized fuel for the Region, the KRG natural resources ministry said on Thursday.

In remarks to The New Region, ministry spokesperson Ahmed Mufti asserted that Erbil has “no problem with them taking the 50,000 barrels of oil, but let them bring us 450 dinars' worth of gasoline. We agree to this proposal, and we have also made another proposal: that we receive crude oil instead.”

He further expressed readiness to meet with the Iraqi oil ministry on the matter in the coming days, noting that discussing the details of the issue “requires more time.”

The remarks came amid a KRG delegation’s visit to Baghdad to discuss the ongoing fuel crisis in the Kurdistan Region with a temporary Iraqi parliamentary committee formed to address the issue.

Earlier in August, Iraqi Oil Minister Basim Mohammed Khudair said that Baghdad is ready to provide necessary gasoline in exchange for the KRG’s handover of 50,000 barrels of oil designated for domestic use.

The renewed regional conflict and higher costs of materials needed to produce higher qualities of fuel have resulted in reduced supply at gas stations and higher prices across the Kurdistan Region provinces in recent weeks.

The fuel crisis in the Kurdistan Region is ongoing despite a recent KRG decision to increase petroleum supplies to gas stations in the Region and the government introducing pricing caps in July.

Sipan Sherwani, a member of the oil committee in the Iraqi parliament, told The New Region that the KRG has presented “more than one solution” to the crisis, “including [Baghdad] providing the necessary amount of crude oil [to Erbil] based on population, or its equivalent in gasoline, or giving Kurdistan a share of imported fuel,” noting however that Baghdad “is not ready to implement any of these options.”

Scores of Iraqi lawmakers have signed a petition calling on the federal government to increase Kurdistan Region’s share of crude oil or compensate the Region with benzine to address the worsening crisis.

In late July, the KRG called on the Iraqi federal government to increase the Kurdistan Region’s allocated share of crude oil from the currently allotted 50,000 barrels to 126,700 barrels, in accordance with the Region’s population, which makes up 12.67 percent of Iraq’s total population.