Turkey Halts Iraqi Crude Flows After Court Ruling

Turkey has formally told the Iraqi federal government that it has stopped pumping crude from the Iraqi Kurdistan region for loading at the Turkish port of Ceyhan, a source with knowledge of the matter told Argus.

• The move comes after Baghdad was informed late on Friday that an international arbitration court had ruled in its favour in a long-running case against it had brought against Ankara over Kurdish crude exports.
• Turkey's state-owned Botas informed Baghdad that pumping operations were suspended at around 12:30 local time on Saturday at pumping station 3 (PS3) on the Turkish side of the pipeline, the source said. Turkey also said following Friday's ruling that it would not allow shipments carrying crude from Iraqi Kurdistan to leave Ceyhan without Baghdad's consent.
• The long-expected ruling deals a potentially fatal blow to the KRG's quest for autonomous control of its oil sector and raises urgent questions about how oil companies in Kurdistan will be able to continue producing and selling the roughly 400kbpd of crude they had been pumping to Turkey. The pipeline shutdown also closes off federal Iraqi exports through the KRG-controlled pipeline that had been averaging about 75,000 bpd in the past year.