"A brigade of 6,000 peshmerga will be sent to an area southwest of Kirkuk to protect electric generators between Kirkuk and Baiji," Brigadier General Jabbar Yawar, a spokesman for the Kurdish Regional Government security force said.

At least 55 of the 179 massive transmission towers running between the oil hub of Kirkuk and the central Iraqi refinery city of Baiji have been torn down in recent years, contributing to Iraq's frequent power outages.

Yawar said a delegation from the Kurdish government agreed to dispatch the force after talks with Iraq's defence minister earlier this month and are only awaiting the final approval of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Similar plans are being drawn up to dispatch Kurdish soldiers to the area around the northern city of Mosul, where insurgents frequently rupture oil pipelines connecting Kirkuk to the Turkish port of Ceyhan.

The peshmerga are former Kurdish guerrillas who were involved in the 2003 US-led invasion before joining national Iraqi security forces.

Iraq could potentially export 1.2 million barrels of oil a day from its generous Kirkuk reserves but attacks on its northern infrastructure have left the pipelines dry for months.