Initial exports will start at 60,000 barrels a day from Tawke field and another 40,000 bpd from the Taq Taq field will follow later in June, Ashti Hawrami, the region's natural resources minister, said in a statement late Friday.

"The revenue will be deposited to the federal Iraq account for the benefit of all Iraqi people," said Hawrami.

Exports from Tawke will link with the Iraq-Turkey main export pipeline at the border town of Fishkhabur, while crude from Taq Taq will be loaded in the regional capital Arbil before connecting with the Iraq-Turkey export pipeline.

Hawrami said the northern region aims to export 250,000 bpd from the two fields by the end of the year.

Turkey's Genel Enerji and Addax Petroleum of Canada operate Taq Taq, while Tawke is developed by Norwegian oil firm DNO.

The announcement is likely to intensify bitter feuding dating back to 2007 between Baghdad's Shiite-led central government and the Kurdish regional government over the sharing of the nation's oil wealth.

Disagreement over oil rights have held up exploitation of much of Iran's massive reserves as well as long-delayed hydrocarbons legislation.

Iraq hopes to be able to pump six million barrels per day, up from its current stated output of around 2.2 million, within the next four to five years as new projects come online.

The conflict-ravaged country has the world's third largest proven reserves of oil, with more than 115 billion barrels, behind only Saudi Arabia and Iran.