Iraqi Kurdish administration begins oil export for first time via Turkey

Initial exports will be around 40,000 barrels per day from Taq Taq in Arbil to the Turkish port of Ceyhan and another 50,000 bpd from the Tawke field in the Dahuk province, with maximum combined output projected to reach 250,000 bpd sometime next year.Â

 

Companies chosen by the regional government will pump oil from two Iraqi Kurdish fields via pipeline to Turkey with the consent of Baghdad, in a step that could pave the way to ending bitter domestic feuds over Iraq's oil wealth.

 

Iraqi Kurds and the central government are in dispute over how to manage the country’s oil resources. But they have reached a deal letting the Iraqi Kurds ship oil through the northern pipeline, with revenues deposited in a central government-controlled bank account.

 

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, himself a Kurd, and Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdish regional administration opened a ceremonial valve at the event while a live broadcast showed workers at the Taq Taq oil field in Arbil province turning on the pumps.

 

"It is a historic date, a giant step," Barzani was quoted by AFP as saying at a lavish ceremony in Arbil. "We are proud of this success, and this achievement will serve the interests of all Iraqis, especially the Kurds," he added.

 

Talabani said "these contracts are legal, constitutional and legitimate and they are in the interests of Iraqi people."

 

"We all love the Iraqi people and the Kurdish people are an important part of the Iraqi people, who made sacrifices to free Iraq from dictatorship," Talabani added.

 

Exports from Tawke will link with the Iraq-Turkey main export pipeline at the border town of Fishkhabur, while crude from Taq Taq will be trucked from Arbil before connecting with the Iraq-Turkey export pipeline.

The terms of the Taq Taq deal are for Baghdad to receive 88 percent of revenues of which the Iraqi Kurd region will get back 17 percent. Genel Enerji and Addax will share 12 percent, Okotan told reporters.

Iraqi Kurd officials announced earlier this month an eight-billion-dollar plan to develop Kurdish gas fields with four European and two United Arab Emirates partners that could later supply the EU’s flagship Nabucco pipeline.

Iraq's Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani responded by calling the deal illegal, although he has come under heavy criticism for failing to lift the nation’s anemic oil and gas output as crude prices have plunged.

Iraq has the world's third largest proven reserves of oil, with more than 115 billion barrels, behind only Saudi Arabia and Iran.