Iraqi Kurdistan Starts Oil Exports Through Turkey

The government of northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan announced on Friday that it has completed the first export sales of crude oil produced in the region and piped to the Turkish port of Ceyhan.

A tanker loaded with over one million barrels of crude oil piped to Ceyhan via the newly built pipeline in the Kurdistan Region departed last night from the port towards Europe, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) said in a statement on its website.

"The revenue from the sales will be deposited in a KRG-controlled account in Halkbank in Turkey and will be treated as part of the KRG’s budgetary entitlement under Iraq’s revenue sharing and distribution as defined under the 2005 Constitution of Iraq”, the KRG said.

In compliance with Iraq’s international UN obligations, five percent of the sales revenue will be set aside in a separate account for reparations.

The KRG said also it had invited independent bodies and officials from the federal Iraqi oil marketing organization SOMO to observe the sales and export process.

Source: SeeNews