NORTH KURDISTAN WILL BE EXPORTING OIL TO THE TURKISH MEDITERRANEAN PORT OF CEYHAN
/PanARMENIAN.Net/
02.06.2009
/PanARMENIAN .Net/ Iraqi Kurds are set to begin crude oil exports via
Turkey today after overcoming a dispute with the Baghdad administration
over the distribution of Iraq’s oil wealth. "We consider the start of
the exports as a historic moment for us," Mehmet Okutan, the Turkish
project manager of the Taq Taq oil field, one of the two northern
Iraqi fields that will officially start pumping crude oil. Oil from
Taq Taq, along with Tawke, will be exported by the Kirkuk-Yumurtalýk
pipeline to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. It will be the
first time the semi-autonomous Kurdish region has exported oil. The
Kurds and the Iraqi central government have long been in dispute over
the management of oil fields. But a deal was worked out to allow the
Kurds to ship oil through the government’s northern pipeline, a major
breakthrough in the dispute. The start of oil exports is also a sign
of the growing trust in Kurds’ ties with Turkey. Ankara, in the past,
viewed Kurdish attempts to control oil reserves in the northern Iraq
as a step in direction of expanding their political influence in the
region, something that could also lead to an independent Kurdish
state. Now, Turkey’s Genel Enerji is jointly developing the Taq
Taq field with oil and gas company Addax Petroleum. Tawke is being
developed by Norway’s DNO International. Okutan told reporters on
Saturday that exports from Taq Taq will begin at about 40,000 barrels
per day (bpd) and increase to 60,000 bpd by October. "Starting Monday,
we will be able to produce 40,000 barrels per day from this facility,
but starting in October, at the latest November, we will be able to
produce 60,000 bpd," he said. Tawke is set to start pumping 60,000
bpd, Kurdish authorities say. Taq Taq’s output will initially travel
by truck and then be pumped into a pipeline to Turkey for export. The
oil will be sold by Iraq’s national State Oil Marketing Organization
(SOMO).
Baghdad has long insisted that the Kurds do not have the right to make
deals with private oil firms without its approval. It also opposes the
production-sharing agreements the Kurdish government has signed with
firms and there remains uncertainty over how the Kurdish administration
will pay Addax, Genel and DNO for the crude they pump. The oil feud
is part of a larger dispute between minority Kurds and majority Arabs
over resources, land and power in Iraq, which has held up the passage
of modern national oil legislation, NYTurkish.com reported.