Oil companies working in the Kurdish north of Iraq said Tuesday they completed infrastructure that should increase total production by more than 60 percent.

Hungarian energy company MOL and Gulf Keystone Petroleum, which has headquarters in London, said in coordinating statements three wells in the Shaikan oil play in the Kurdish north are now connected to existing production facilities.

With the addition, the companies said total production should increase from a combined average of 24,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day to 40,000 boepd.

"We continue to focus our efforts to achieve volumetric increase in our assets in the Kurdistani Region of Iraq and also work together with the Ministry of Natural Resources in order to monetize production the most efficient way," MOL's vice president in charge of upstream operations, Alexander Dodds, said in a statement.

Iraqi and Kurdish leaders earlier this month brokered a deal breaking a simmering impasse over oil in the country. Both sides have been at odds over jurisdictional issues.

The semiautonomous Kurdistan Regional Government under the terms of the agreement funnels 250,000 barrels of oil per day to Baghdad and agrees to use the federal State Oil Marketing Organization for marketing. Both sides will also facilitate exports from oil fields in disputed territory in Kirkuk.

Oil companies working in the Kurdish north praised the agreement as a welcome step toward meeting production goals.

"[I] look forward to boosting Shaikan production to our near-term target," Gulf Keystone Chief Executive Officer John Gerstenlauer said in a statement.

Both companies said crude oil taken from the Shaikan reserve area was making its way to the export market from the Turkish coast.