ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A delegation from the Iraqi defense ministry arrived in Erbil on Thursday to conduct a preliminary investigation for providing air defense system to international oil companies (IOCs) operating in the Kurdistan Region, the ministry said in a statement, as an MP from the Iraqi parliament signaled the resumption and scaling up of oil exports.
Sherwan Dubardani, an MP from the Iraqi parliament’s security and defense committee, confirmed to Rudaw that the air defenses will be provided to Iraq and then Baghdad “will hand it over to the Kurdistan Region to be installed at the oil fields.”
The IOCs “are scheduled to resume and increase oil production starting next week” citing them as “necessary measures to protect the Kurdistan Region's oil fields and install air defense and anti-drone systems at those fields.”
This comes as Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said on Tuesday that equipping the Region with air defense capabilities is “a major step forward,” adding that Erbil and Baghdad are working on a “mechanism” to procure the air protections systems to the Kurdistan Region and “the companies that require protection.”
The Iraqi delegation held an expanded meeting with the Region’s interior minister Rebar Ahmed to discuss the security of vital facilities and ways to protect them.
The Iraqi defense ministry’s Thursday visit focused on “assessing the requirements for securing air protection for vital areas and oil facilities, and verifying the efficiency of the preventive measures taken to fortify economic infrastructure, thereby ensuring the continuity of work in these strategic arteries and establishing sustainable stability,” the statement read.
They conducted a "reconnaissance visit” to Khormala oil field in Erbil as well as Sheikahn Fish Khabur in Duhok province.
During the visit, they obtained a “detailed briefing on protection plans, potential challenges, and ways to address them,” their statement noted.
Meanwhile, Sabah al-Numan, spokesperson for the Commander-in-Chief of the Iraq Armed Forces, told Rudaw later in the day that the defense delegation is “technical “ and that they will later notify the Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi regarding the outcome of their visit.
“In the first phase, approximately 200,000 barrels of oil per day will be exported to Turkey's Ceyhan port, and the amount will later be increased according to capacity," he explained.
IOCs operating in the Kurdistan Region have scaled down production as a precautionary measure since late February, when the US and Israel launched a military campaign against Iran, triggering a regional confrontation that lasted for nearly six weeks.
For the past months, they have maintained an average of 80,000 barrels of crude per day, with the most of the produced oil going for domestic consumption in the Kurdistan Region.
Since the outbreak of the war toward last week, the Region has been hit with at least 865 projectiles from Iran and its aligned groups in Iraq, according to Rudaw’s tracking.
Moreover, long before the six-week war, energy infrastructure in the Kurdistan Region faced repeated drone and missile attacks, largely launched from within Iraqi territory.
However, as the war and the respective closure of the Strait of Hormuz forced a drastic decline of Iraqi oil exports through the country’s southern ports - from an average of 91 million barrels a month before the war to 10 million in April - Baghdad has sought to increase overland sales, particularly through the Iraq-Turkey pipeline that goes through the Kurdistan Region.
Current exports through the Kurdistan pipeline average about 233,000 barrels per day, including oil from Kurdistan Region fields and blended crude from Kirkuk and other northern and central fields.
In early June, Iraqi premier Zaidi met with a delegation from Erbil that included the IOCs operating there.
He asked them to raise production while providing security guarantees for the protection of oil fields.
Nahro Mohammed contributed to this report from Erbil, Kurdistan Region.
