Iraqi Kurdistan’s Ministry of Natural Resources has authorised the first tranche of regular payments to exporting international oil companies (IOCs) operating in the autonomous region.

Payments worth a total of $75m have been approved according to a statement released on 7 September.

The funds has been generated by direct sales of crude from oil fields in the region.

A payment of $30m has been approved for Turkey-based Genel Energy. A payment of $30m was approved for Norway’s DNO and a payment of $15m was approved for London-listed Gulf Keystone Petroleum.

They payments will be wired to the companies’ accounts within seven days, according to the statement.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is looking to increase payments to IOCs over coming months.

“As oil export rises (sic) in early 2016, the KRG envisages making additional revenue available to the exporting IOCs to enable them to begin to catch up on the past receivables due under their production sharing contracts,” the Ministry of Natural Resources said in its statement.