BAGHDAD - Iraq’s oil ministry said on Monday that the autonomous Kurdistan region had contributed less than half the agreed volumes of crude oil to national exports since the start of the year. The oil ministry said Kurdish oil exports so far this year had dropped to an average of 241,000 barrels per day (bpd) in August, compared with about 328,000 bpd at the end of March. The autonomous region has ramped up independent sales since mid-June while cutting allocations to Iraq’s state oil firm SOMO in an escalating dispute over export rights and budget payments. June was the first month of large independent sales since December last year, when Kurdistan reached a deal with Baghdad to transfer an average of 550,000 bpd in 2015 in return for the reinstatement of budget payments. The Kurdistan regional government (KRG) exported an average of 516,745 bpd in July via pipeline to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan in Turkey but only 71,017 bpd of that went to SOMO.