Iraqi oil flows to Turkey after US pledges role in Baghdad-Kurds customs dispute
A US-brokered breakthrough between Baghdad and Erbil has restarted Iraqi oil exports through Turkey after a weeklong standoff.
Iraqi authorities announced Wednesday the resumption of exports of 250,000 barrels of crude oil per day from the Kirkuk fields via a pipeline running through the Kurdish north of the country and on to loading terminals on Turkey’s southern Mediterranean shores.
Turkey’s energy minister, Alparslan Bayraktar, confirmed in a television interview that Iraqi crude was flowing to Turkey. He said the volume would be between 170,000 and 250,000 barrels per day and added that Turkey had proposed that the pipeline be extended to Basra. “We have been saying this for years, asking where Iraq will export its oil if the Strait of Hormuz is closed,” Bayraktar said.
Markets reacted positively for a while, with Brent crude futures falling to around $102 per barrel after rising anew, hitting $109 later in the day.
The exports restarted after the Kurdistan Regional Government agreed Tuesday to let Iraqi crude flow through its pipeline after the United States intervened, ending a weeklong standoff between Erbil and Baghdad over the matter, according to a senior Iraqi Kurdish official who spoke exclusively to Al-Monitor on background about the details of the agreement.
