Kurdistan Region has been handing oil to Baghdad since mid-June

The Kurdistan Regional Government has been handing over 50,000-60,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil to Baghdad since the middle of June as part of the budget deal under which the federal government of Iraq will be responsible for exporting Kurdistan’s crude oil.

“We have handed over 50,000-60,000 barrels of oil since mid-June,” to the federal government of Iraq, Omed Sabah, President of the Diwan of Council of Ministers, told local news outlet Kurdistan 24 in an interview published on Monday.

According to the new budget deal between the federal government in Baghdad and the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan, the Iraqi state oil marketing company SOMO is now in charge of marketing Kurdistan’s crude, after the region had sold the oil independently for years. 

Despite the new budget deal, under which Kurdistan is entitled to a 12.67% share of the Iraqi budget, most of the oil from Kurdistan hasn’t been exported since the end of March this year.

Iraq and Kurdistan have not exported crude oil from the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean since March 25, due to ongoing disputes about who is in charge of exports.  

Iraq, OPEC’s second-largest producer after Saudi Arabia, is currently exporting oil only via its southern oil export terminals. Around 450,000 barrels per day (bpd) of exports from the northern fields and from Kurdistan continue to be shut in due to a dispute over who should authorize the Kurdish exports.  

Kurdistan’s crude oil exports—around 400,000 bpd shipped through an Iraqi-Turkey pipeline to Ceyhan and then on tankers to the international markets—were halted on March 25 by the federal government of Iraq.

The suspension of crude oil flows out of northern Iraq and Kurdistan via Ceyhan forced companies to either curtail or suspend production because of limited capacity at storage tanks.

News Code 159150

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