Iraq's Kurdish Region resumes oil exports to Turkey by pipeline
Date
3/12/2016 11:56:45 PM
(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Representative image. A worker checks the valve gears of pipes linked to oil tanks at Turkey's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan which is run by state-owned Petroleum Pipeline Corporation (BOTAS) some 70 km (43.5 miles) from Adana February 19 2014. Reuters/Umit Bektas
Khalid Al/Ansary Firat Kayakiran and Kadhim Ajrash
Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region resumed oil exports through a pipeline to a port on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast that had been halted since the middle of last month reviving flows that had contributed to a global glut.
Pumping to the Turkish port of Ceyhan restarted at 4:30 p.m. local time according to a Turkish Energy Ministry official who asked not to be identified in line with government policy. The northern region’s Kirkuk oil fields also resumed piped shipments. Sabotage on the network had cut exports from Iraq OPEC’s fastest-growing producer by about 600000 barrels a day or about 14 percent of the nation’s output the International Energy Agency estimated.
The Kurdistan Regional Government which took control of Kirkuk in 2014 as Iraq’s national army fled from Islamic State militants estimates the halt cost $200 million as of March 3. The disruption helped fan a 34-percent rebound in oil prices over the past month according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Brent futures climbed to a three-month high of $41.48 a barrel on March 8.
Iraq the second-biggest member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries boosted production to a record 4.43 million barrels a day in January as the Kurds pressed on with independent oil sales amid a dispute with the central government in Baghdad over revenue-sharing.
The KRG has struggled to pay international companies operating in the region such as Genel Energy Plc and DNO ASA as it contends with the Islamic State insurgency and the suspension of budget payments from the federal government.
Bloomberg