Oil Firms Need Kurdistan Fee Subject Settled Earlier than Resuming Exports

The worldwide oil firms working in Iraq’s semi-autonomous area of Kurdistan is not going to be producing oil for exports till they’ve readability about overdue and future funds and gross sales phrases, Norwegian agency DNO, one of many six members of the Affiliation of the Petroleum Business of Kurdistan (APIKUR), said on Thursday.   

At present, Iraqi federal authorities officers and the Kurdistan area’s petroleum affiliation are discussing the resumption of crude flows via the Iraq-Turkey pipeline to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.

Kurdistan’s crude oil exports were halted on March 25 by the federal authorities of Iraq. The halt got here after the Worldwide Chamber of Commerce dominated in favor of Iraq in opposition to Turkey in a dispute over crude flows from Kurdistan.

Iraq, OPEC’s second-largest producer after Saudi Arabia, is at the moment exporting oil solely through its southern oil export terminals. Round 450,000 bpd of exports from the northern fields and from Kurdistan proceed to be shut in because of the dispute. 

In a press release on Thursday, Norway’s DNO mentioned: “In response to a current assertion by the Prime Minister of Iraq, Baghdad and Ankara are ready to recommence flows from Kurdistan as quickly as sure unspecified agreements between the worldwide oil firms and Iraq and Erbil are reached.”  

“In response, the Affiliation of the Petroleum Business of Kurdistan (APIKUR), of which DNO is considered one of six members, has said that the member firms is not going to be ready to supply oil for pipeline exports till it’s clear how they are going to be paid for his or her contractual entitlements of oil already bought and delivered for export and for future gross sales of such oil for export.”

The members of the affiliation are owed practically $1 billion in overdue and unpaid arrears, in accordance with DNO.  

Representatives of the businesses met with Iraqi officers in Dubai on Wednesday and offered to sell the crude from their fields in Kurdistan on to the federal authorities—to Iraq’s state advertising agency SOMO.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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