Baghdad  - Oil will begin flowing from the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq on Monday, despite opposition from the Iraqi central government in Baghdad, local media reported Sunday.

"We have finalized all the preparations. A few days ago we conducted a test pumping, and now we are exporting oil officially as of tomorrow (Monday)," Mohammed Okotan, a project director from the Taq Taq oil company, told Baghdad's Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

The government in Baghdad has repeatedly said it does not recognise the legitimacy of the Kurdish export contracts.

"Iraq's oil ministry considers the contracts signed by the Kurdish government with the international oil companies illegitimate and illegal," Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani told Iraqi state television two weeks ago.

Okotan said the oil fields at Taqtaq produce about 50,000 barrels of oil per day, 10,000 of which go to the local market. The other 40,000 will travel by tanker truck to Kirkuk, and from there to Ceyhan, Turkey, via pipeline.

The Kurdish government has said it will export an additional 60,000 barrels of oil a day to Turkey from the Tawke field, near the city of Dohuk, some 460 kilometres north of Baghdad.

Kurdish officials say the agreements were legal, and were struck in accordance with the Iraqi constitution. (dpa)