ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – After the first sale of Kurdish oil at the Turkish port of Ceyhan was announced by Turkey’s energy minister on Thursday, the deputy head of the Iraqi parliament’s oil and gas committee called on Baghdad to issue a “halt order” to stop the sales.
"Oil belongs to the people of Iraq and no party should export oil without permission from central government," Ali Fayyaz said.
“Neither the Kurdistan Region nor any other governorate has the right to export oil without permission from the central government,” he said. He called on the Iraqi oil ministry and parliament to issue a “prevention order” to stop the sales.
The first sale of Kurdish oil at Ceyhan was confirmed by Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz. He told the Reuters news agency that 1 million barrels of oil from Kurdistan’s new pipeline was being loaded on a tanker at Ceyhan.
Yildiz declined to name the buyer.
The oil sales have apparently began without the consent of Iraq’s central government, which has gone to great lengths to stop Erbil from controlling exports and revenues from its abundant energy reserves.
Ankara had pledged to wait for the row between Erbil and Baghdad to resolve before allowing the sales. But after storage tanks at Ceyhan grew full with 2.5 million barrels of piped Kurdish oil that began flowing in December, Turkey announced with Kurdish officials that the oil sales would go ahead this month.
The Kurds have chosen an opportune moment to begin the sales: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is making an uphill bid for a third term following elections last month, cannot fulfill the ambition of keeping his job without political support from the Kurdish bloc in parliament.
The KRG is infuriated at Maliki, who has very little room to pressure Kurdish leaders any further.
For several months Baghdad has frozen payments to Erbil from the national budget as pressure and punishment for trying to go ahead with the oil sales. The oil revenues are expected to go a long way to ease Kurdistan’s tight cash flow.
Baghdad has maintained that Kurdish oil sales are illegal. The Kurds have threatened to go so far as to declare independence unless Baghdad gives them greater control over their rights and resources.
