By Humeyra Pamuk, Ahmed Rasheed and Isabel Coles
ANKARA/ARBIL, June 29 (Reuters) - Iraq's semi-autonomousKurdistan region has ramped up independent oil sales sincemid-June while cutting allocations to Iraq's state oil firm SOMOin an escalating dispute over export rights and budget payments.
Kurdistan has sold at least 9 million barrels of oil in 11tankers from the Turkish port of Ceyhan so far in June,according to shipping data and traders, compared to 5 million itallocated to SOMO in early June after which transfers largelystopped.
June became the first month of large independent sales sinceDecember last year, when Kurdistan agreed a deal with Baghdad totransfer up to 550,000 barrels per day to SOMO in exchange forBaghdad allocating Arbil 17 percent of budget payments.
The deal has faced troubles ever since with Baghdad accusingArbil of allocating smaller-than-agreed amount of oil and Arbilsaying Baghdad is paying less than a half of what is due.Neither side has yet called the deal dead but the blame game hascontinued for weeks.
"Unfortunately the (Kurdistan) region has not complied withit until now," Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in hisweekly address on Sunday.
That followed a statement from the government of Kurdistan(KRG) earlier in June in which is said it remained committed tooil transfers to SOMO but accused Baghdad of reneging on thedeal.
"If Iraq's federal government does not commit to the federalbudget law, the KRG is obliged to consider other solutions toprovide for the livelihoods of the Kurdistan region's people andto solve the financial and economic crisis," it said.
The KRG said its need for money was especially acute giventhe fight against Islamic State militants and the sheltering ofa large number of refugees from Syria and Iraq.
Kurdistan's independent shipments have created havoc atCeyhan where tankers - which were previous meant to be loadingoil from SOMO - have been queuing for weeks.
Last week, BP and Cepsa cancelled loadings due to alack of oil in SOMO's tanks and this week Total, Kogas and Gazprom Neft cancelled their loadings.
Meanwhile, Kurdish independent exports have returned to thepatterns seen in 2014, when oil sailed in tankers of shippingcompany United mainly to the Israeli port of Ashkelon from whereoil was resold back to the Mediterranean market.
"The buyers are mainly those who don't have ties with SOMO,"a trading source involved in the process said. (Additional reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov and Rania El Gamal;Writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov, editing by David Evans)
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