An oil company doing business in the region, Genel Energy, began shipping Kurdish oil by truck to Turkey in January.

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Its partner in northern Iraq, Genel Enerji, is a division of Turkey's powerful Cukurova Group conglomerate, controlled by Chairman Mehmet Emin Karamehmet.

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Addax began talks with Genel, but months passed, and any hope of a deal seemed bogged down as other suitors tried to woo the Turks.

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Kurdish officials and representatives from Genel Enerji, a Turkish company working in Taq Taq, said initially only 40, 000 barrels of oil would be exported a day.

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In 2005 he became one of the earliest western investors to take a chance on the Kurdish oilpatch, partnering with Turkish oil company Genel to develop the supergiant Taq Taq field.

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Meantime, Gandur and Genel will likely start construction of a refinery near Taq Taq that would take 20, 000 barrels a day and provide a vital supply of indigenous gasoline to the Kurds.

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In 2002 Jalal Talabani, then president of the the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (now president of Iraq), signed up Turkey's Petoil and Genel Enerji to the first production-sharing agreements, under which the Kurds were promised roughly half of any oil produced.

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