* Expects Baghdad to approve Kurdistan oil contracts
* CEO says other oil firms in N.Iraq candidates for M&A
* Sees $10-$15 bln of new investment in N.Iraq, Uganda
(adds comments on investments, Heritage, background)
By Ercan Ersoy
LONDON, June 11 (Reuters) - Oil company Genel Energy International is confident its focus on politically charged Iraqi Kurdistan will not prevent it doing business with Baghdad both there and, if opportunities arise, in the country's south.
The unlisted Turkish firm, which two days ago announced a $5.5 billion merger with UK-based oil explorer Heritage Oil, also expects further M&A activity among the 35 oil firms operating Iraq's semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region.
"We believe that there will be more consolidation," Genel Energy's chief executive Mehmet Sepil told Reuters in an interview on Thursday.
Genel Energy, which is part of leading conglomerate Cukurova Group, won oil production licences in six fields in Iraqi Kurdistan and started pumping 100,000 barrels oil per day on June 1 to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. The firm has assets worth around $3.4 billion.
Some new companies including Turkish ones are in negotiations for other oil exploration and production licences in northern Iraq, Sepil said.
Separately, the Kurdistan Regional Government's natural resources minister, Ashti Hawrami, told Reuters six companies from three countries were interested in bidding for oil contracts in the region.
The Iraqi government in Baghdad has described the oil deals signed by the Kurdish government as illegal, and anyone investing there is effectively blocked from investing in the rest of Iraq.
But Sepil said he expected Baghdad to approve Genel Energy's contracts, as 88 percent of export revenues generated by the company go to the Iraqi government, adding that the firm would also be interested in oil contracts in southern Iraq if Baghdad invited bidders.
"We are very comfortable about working with the Kurdistan Regional Government...We believe that the central Iraqi government wants sales in northern Iraq to continue," Sepil said.
Another operator in the Kurdish region, Norway's DNO International, on Thursday linked future investments in Iraq to swift payment from Baghdad for oil exports that began from its northern field at the start of June.
Genel Energy has invested $350 million in the last six years in Kurdish Iraq and controls 300 million barrels of oil reserves in the region.
The new company to emerge from the Genel Energy-Heritage merger will invest in Heritage's oil blocks in Uganda using cash generated from Iraqi oil exports.
In response to a question on the combined size of the merged firm's Uganda and northern Iraq investment, Sepil said: "Billions of dollars, it can be $10-$15 billion."
(Writing by Selcuk Gokoluk; editing by John Stonestreet)