Iraq Is Yet To Restart Oil Flows From Kurdistan

Iraq is yet to resume crude oil exports from the Kurdistan region, despite reports from Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani saying exports could restart last week following an agreement between the government, SOMO and the oil companies.

• The prime minister said last week the government was planning to sign an agreement with SOMO and the oil companies to resume exports and it was possible for crude oil exports to resume last week.
• In the meantime, two vessels left the waters near Ceyhan in Turkey over the weekend without loading any crude and three tankers chartered to take Kurdish crude are still waiting near the port. The five vessels were hired to carry a total of about 4 million barrels of oil according to Bloomberg ship-tracking and port agent reports.
• Turkey halted pipeline flows from the northern fields on 25 March after an international arbitration tribunal ruled that it had to pay around $1.5bn in damaged to Iraq for facilitating KRG sales via Ceyhan.
• A restart of exports awaits the settlement of the payments dispute between Iraq and Turkey over the sales.