ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Iraq’s Kurdistan Region has resumed oil exports of 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) through a pipeline to Turkey, where the crude will go for sale in the next several days, Turkish energy minister Taner Yildiz indicated.
"The flow of oil from northern Iraq resumed with a capacity of 100,000 barrels a day,” Yildiz told journalists on Friday in the northwestern city of Bursa. "Turkey only facilitates the procedure and paves the way," he added. “The sales may begin within three days or a week."
Yildiz reaffirmed that the oil belonged to all Iraqis, and they are responsible for the sale. "The oil stockpiles belong to Iraq and, of course, they will sell it themselves," he noted.
A senior advisor at Kurdistan’s Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR), who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said: “We ask buyers to participate in tenders to sell Kurdistan oil.”
The statements by the Turkish minister and the Kurdish advisor meant that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is going ahead with selling its oil to buyers at the Turkish port of Ceyhan, despite unresolved differences with Baghdad over the issue.
The oil row escalated at the start of this year, when the Kurds began pumping oil through their pipeline to Ceyhan, and Baghdad declared the exports were “illegal.”
The central government has said that the revenues from the Kurdish oil sales must be controlled by Iraq’s own State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO). When the Kurds insisted on controlling sales and revenues, Baghdad cut off the KRG from the national budget.
Last week, KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani said in exclusive interview with Rudaw that Kurdish oil would be sold in early May. He said that, until now Kurdish oil was stored at Ceyhan but not sold, and that the selling would begin in early May.
The MNR adviser said that the statements by Barzani and Yildiz were quite obvious: “Kurdistan will sell oil at the beginning of this month.”
According to Yildiz, stored Kurdish oil at tanks in Ceyhan now totals 1.8 million barrels, close to the total storage capacity of 2.5 million barrels.
The Kurdish advisor said that Erbil has taken the step of resuming exports and beginning sales after Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki took the strong step of cutting off budget payments to Kurdistan.
As a sign of “goodwill,” and after intensive US mediation, the KRG had agreed to export 100,000 bpd via the Iraq-Turkey pipeline (ITP), starting April 1. But that did not happen because of technical problems with the ITP and constant sabotage of the pipeline by Sunni insurgent groups.
So far, there has been no comment from Baghdad about the KRG’s latest declared intention of beginning oil sales imminently. In the past, Baghdad has been quick to comment on Kurdish moves over oil exports and sales.
Baghdad has threatened to sue any company lifting Kurdish oil at Ceyhan.
The resumption of Kurdish oil exports comes just two days after Iraq held its legislative elections. Preliminary results show the formation of the next government will be a daunting and lengthy process, as religious and ethnic forces that have been at serious odds with Maliki try to come together in a government.
According to the formula the KRG has proposed, the revenues from oil sales are to be divided between Erbil and Baghdad. The Kurds would get 17 percent of the revenues, equal to their constitutional share of the budget. The rest would go to the federal government, after five percent is given to Kuwait for reparations and compensation that Iraq is obliged to make under UN resolutions.
