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IRAQ VOWS TO PUNISH TURKEY, KURDS OVER 'SMUGGLED' OIL
January 17, 2014 - 20:51 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net - Iraq will seek legal redress and take other measures
to punish Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as foreign companies,
for any involvement in Kurdish exports of "smuggled" oil without
Baghdad's consent, Iraq's oil minister said on Friday, Jan 17,
according to Reuters.
Abdul Kareem Luaibi told reporters the government was preparing legal
action against Ankara and would blacklist any companies dealing with
oil piped to Turkey from Iraq's autonomous northern region without
permission from Baghdad.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) said last week that crude
had begun to flow through the pipeline, and exports were on track to
start at the end of January. It invited bidders to register with the
Kurdistan Oil Marketing Organization.
Luaibi said it was not in Turkey's interest to jeopardize bilateral
trade worth $12 billion (7.2 billion pounds) a year, saying Baghdad
would consider boycotting all Turkish companies and cancelling all
contracts with Turkish firms if the oil exports went ahead.
"Turkey must consider its commercial ties and its interests in Iraq,"
he said. "Turkey should know this issue is dangerous. It touches the
independence and unity of Iraq. If Turkey allows the export of oil
from the region, it is meddling in the division of Iraq, and this is
a red line."
Baghdad has already blacklisted some companies for signing contracts
with the KRG and last year threatened to sue Anglo-Turkish energy
company Genel, the first firm to export oil directly from Kurdistan.
That threat has not yet materialized.
Luaibi said the Finance Ministry had been told to calculate how
much should be deducted from Iraqi Kurdistan's 17 percent share of
the federal budget if the region failed to meet a government-set
target for authorised crude exports via Iraq's State Oil Marketing
Organization this year of 400,000 barrels per day.
This target is well beyond Kurdistan's current export capacity of
around 255,000 bpd. Kurdish ministers walked out of a federal cabinet
session on Wednesday in protest at the draft state 2014 budget,
which contains the target.
Industry sources do not expect Kurdistan's oil exports to reach
400,000 bpd until the end of this year or early 2015, Reuters says.
Luaibi said preparations are under way to sue the Turkish government
for allowing Kurdistan to pump oil through the export pipeline without
the approval of Baghdad.
He called this "a clear violation of the agreement signed between the
two countries ... governing the export of Iraqi oil through Turkey."
"All companies...were notified not to deal with the (Kurdish) region
to buy any quantity of oil which is considered as smuggled," he said.
Any firms which did so risked legal action and an Iraqi government
boycott.
"The Ministry of Oil will never deal with them at all," he said,
according to Reuters.
Luaibi reiterated Baghdad's stance that it has sole rights to manage
energy resources, saying this was vital to Iraq's stability and that
any breach would have "dire ramifications".
Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani had been due to visit Baghdad
for talks on the dispute, rooted in disagreement over how to exploit
Iraq's vast oil resources and share the proceeds. It was not clear
whether his visit would go ahead.
Kurdistan used to export crude to Turkey through a pipeline
controlled by Baghdad, but stopped the flow a year ago after the
central government withheld payments to oil companies operating in
the northern enclave. Baghdad said it would not pay as the KRG had
not met its previous export target of 250,000 bpd.
Since then, the Kurds have been trucking smaller quantities of crude
to Turkey and collecting the revenues directly, while laying their
own pipeline, which was completed late last year.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said that Kurdistan's missed export
targets had cost Iraq $9 billion in lost revenue in recent years.
http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/news/175018/
January 17, 2014 - 20:51 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net - Iraq will seek legal redress and take other measures
to punish Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as foreign companies,
for any involvement in Kurdish exports of "smuggled" oil without
Baghdad's consent, Iraq's oil minister said on Friday, Jan 17,
according to Reuters.
Abdul Kareem Luaibi told reporters the government was preparing legal
action against Ankara and would blacklist any companies dealing with
oil piped to Turkey from Iraq's autonomous northern region without
permission from Baghdad.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) said last week that crude
had begun to flow through the pipeline, and exports were on track to
start at the end of January. It invited bidders to register with the
Kurdistan Oil Marketing Organization.
Luaibi said it was not in Turkey's interest to jeopardize bilateral
trade worth $12 billion (7.2 billion pounds) a year, saying Baghdad
would consider boycotting all Turkish companies and cancelling all
contracts with Turkish firms if the oil exports went ahead.
"Turkey must consider its commercial ties and its interests in Iraq,"
he said. "Turkey should know this issue is dangerous. It touches the
independence and unity of Iraq. If Turkey allows the export of oil
from the region, it is meddling in the division of Iraq, and this is
a red line."
Baghdad has already blacklisted some companies for signing contracts
with the KRG and last year threatened to sue Anglo-Turkish energy
company Genel, the first firm to export oil directly from Kurdistan.
That threat has not yet materialized.
Luaibi said the Finance Ministry had been told to calculate how
much should be deducted from Iraqi Kurdistan's 17 percent share of
the federal budget if the region failed to meet a government-set
target for authorised crude exports via Iraq's State Oil Marketing
Organization this year of 400,000 barrels per day.
This target is well beyond Kurdistan's current export capacity of
around 255,000 bpd. Kurdish ministers walked out of a federal cabinet
session on Wednesday in protest at the draft state 2014 budget,
which contains the target.
Industry sources do not expect Kurdistan's oil exports to reach
400,000 bpd until the end of this year or early 2015, Reuters says.
Luaibi said preparations are under way to sue the Turkish government
for allowing Kurdistan to pump oil through the export pipeline without
the approval of Baghdad.
He called this "a clear violation of the agreement signed between the
two countries ... governing the export of Iraqi oil through Turkey."
"All companies...were notified not to deal with the (Kurdish) region
to buy any quantity of oil which is considered as smuggled," he said.
Any firms which did so risked legal action and an Iraqi government
boycott.
"The Ministry of Oil will never deal with them at all," he said,
according to Reuters.
Luaibi reiterated Baghdad's stance that it has sole rights to manage
energy resources, saying this was vital to Iraq's stability and that
any breach would have "dire ramifications".
Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani had been due to visit Baghdad
for talks on the dispute, rooted in disagreement over how to exploit
Iraq's vast oil resources and share the proceeds. It was not clear
whether his visit would go ahead.
Kurdistan used to export crude to Turkey through a pipeline
controlled by Baghdad, but stopped the flow a year ago after the
central government withheld payments to oil companies operating in
the northern enclave. Baghdad said it would not pay as the KRG had
not met its previous export target of 250,000 bpd.
Since then, the Kurds have been trucking smaller quantities of crude
to Turkey and collecting the revenues directly, while laying their
own pipeline, which was completed late last year.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said that Kurdistan's missed export
targets had cost Iraq $9 billion in lost revenue in recent years.
http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/news/175018/