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* Iraq oil output at 3.150 mln bpd in March
* Oil min expects higher exports next month
* KRG halting exports caused $2.4 bln loss to budget
By Ahmed Rasheed
BAGHDAD, April 3 (Reuters) - Iraq's total oil production inMarch was 3.150 million barrels per day and crude exports forthe month were 2.417 million bpd, from 2.538 million bpd theprevious month, the oil minister said on Wednesday.
Iraq shipped 2.102 million bpd from the southern oil hub ofBasra and 315,000 bpd from the northern fields around Kirkuk,including 15,000 barrels trucked to Jordan, according to theState Oil Marketing Organisation.
Oil Minister Abdul Kareem Luaibi said he expects exports tobe at higher levels for next months as no delays are expectedfrom bad weather in the Gulf and more crude shipments areforecast when the Majnoon oilfield resumes production in May.
Royal Dutch Shell will resume operations at Iraq'sMajnoon oilfield on May 1, with initial production of 100,000barrels per day (bpd), and is expected to hit 200,000 bpd beforethe end of 2013, Luaibi said.
Luaibi said oil major BP is also holding meetingswith technical teams from the state-run North Oil company todiscuss a plan to spend around $100 million as part of a majorplan to arrest declining production at the Kirkuk oilfield.
"We're waiting for BP to present its major development planfor the Kirkuk oilfield, and only then can we decide when afinal deal could be reached," Luaibi told reporters.
Kirkuk's oil riches are at the centre of a crisis withinthe national government of Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish partiesover how to share power, increasing worries the country mayrelapse into wide-scale sectarian bloodshed.
The ethnically mixed city is part of the country's so-calleddisputed territories claimed both by the Arab-led centralgovernment and the autonomous Kurdistan region in the north. Itsits on 8.5 billion barrels of crude reserves.
Luabi said failure of Kurdistan region to export 250,000 bpdsince the start of this year has affected total export levelsand damaged federal coffers.
"The oil ministry has drafted a report on the damage causedby stoppage of crude flow from Kurdish region and found thatIraq lost around $2.4 billion for the first three months of2013," Luaibi said.
The Kurdistan regional government (KRG) halted exportsthrough the Baghdad-controlled Iraq-Turkey pipeline lastDecember in a dispute over payments to oil companies operatingin Kurdistan.
Iraq's central government and the KRG are in a long-runningdispute over how to exploit the country's crude reserves anddivide the revenues.
Baghdad says it alone has the authority to control export ofthe world's fourth largest oil reserves, while the Kurds saytheir right to do so is enshrined in Iraq's federalconstitution, drawn up following the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.
