MESOP NEWS : Iraq to reopen own oil pipeline to Turkey, bypassing one in Kurdistan
SOUTH KURDISTAN (IRAQ)
10 Oct 2017 – BAGHDAD,— Iraq will reopen an old crude oil pipeline to Turkey which bypasses one operated by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), the oil ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
Iraq’s oil minister, Jabar al-Luaibi, has asked state-owned North Oil Co., the operator of the Kirkuk fields, the State Company for Oil Projects and the state pipeline company to begin the process of restoring and reopening the Kirkuk Ceyhan pipeline.Iraqi Oil Ministry said Tuesday that it aims to increase exports through the pipeline to 400,000 barrels per day.Iraq’s National Security Council, which convened under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on late Monday, asked all neighboring countries to suspend commercial relations with the KRG and work only with Baghdad instead, especially in oil trade.
The Kirkuk Ceyhan pipeline crosses territory taken by Islamic State militants in 2014 and recaptured by US-backed Iraqi forces over the past two years.KRG wholly relies on Turkey’s Ceyhan port to export its oil to the world and Turkey in recent weeks have threatened to shut the pipeline.Iraq’s central government on Monday unleashed a legal barrage against Kurdish officials and sought to seize key businesses in a fresh bid to tighten the screws over a disputed independence referendum.The latest moves come exactly two weeks after an overwhelming majority of voters in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region backed independence in a non-binding ballot slammed as illegal by Baghdad. The oil rich Kirkuk city in Iraq’s north is claimed by both Iraq’s central government and the country’s Kurdish region.The Kurds are seeking to integrate Kirkuk province into the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region claiming it to be historically a Kurdish city, but Iraq’s central government opposes this. The population is a mix of Kurds, Arabs, Christians and Turkmen.The Arabs and Turkmen do not want to see the province under permanent Kurdish control.
Kurdish forces take full control of Kirkuk after the Islamic State insurgency in Iraq in 2014 and the withdrawal of Iraqi army form the province and some other northern region of the state, including second-biggest city of Mosul.