Page 6 - MEOG Week 03 2022

MEOG PIPELINES & TRANSPORT MEOG

BOTAS resumes Kirkuk-Ceyhan

flows following explosion

TURKEY/IRAQ TURKISH state-owned pipeline operator Botas In September, the Iraqi Ministry of Oil
this week said that it had stopped oil flows (MoO) announced that the governments of Iraq
through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan oil pipeline to deal and Turkey would work to re-open the 970-km
with an explosion and fire in the south-eastern pipeline which carries Iraqi crude from Kirkuk
Kahramnmaras province before reopening it the to export facilities in Ceyhan on the Turkish
next day. Mediterranean coast.
The company said on January 18 that the Iraqi Oil Minister Ihsan Abdul Jabbar met
explosion had caused a fire, adding that fire- with Turkish Ambassador to Baghdad Ali Riza
fighters and emergency personnel had been sent Guney to discuss plans “to rehabilitate the stra-
to contain the blaze. It added that the explosion tegic pipeline to transfer crude oil” from the Gulf
had occurred near the “511th kilometre” of the to Europe.
pipeline, but that the cause of the incident was Kirkuk-Ceyhan, which is often also referred
unknown. to as the Iraq-Turkey Pipeline (ITP), consists
Kahramanmaras Mayor Hayrettin Gungor of two strings, which originally had an original
was quoted by the Ihlas News Agency as say- combined nameplate capacity of 1.6mn bpd,
ing that the explosion had not resulted in any with the wider, 46-inch (1,168-mm) pipe capable
casualties. of carrying 1.1mn bpd and the narrower 40-inch
The following morning, Botas said that the (1,016-mm) line 500,000 bpd.
fire had been extinguished and added that “all However, following years of sabotage and dis-
necessary measures have been taken by Botas repair, Kirkuk-Ceyhan has rarely been capable
teams and oil flow will start within 1 hour”. of achieving anywhere near 500,000 bpd and the
Flows of crude through the line from the Iraqi segment of the facility has not been opera-
Kurdistan region of northern Iraq to Ceyhan ran tional since the rise of so-called IS in 2014.
at around 450,000 barrels per day during 2021, The Iraqi and Turkish sections meet near a
with that average dropping to around 350,000 metering station at the border town of Fishkha-
bpd in October-December. Prior to the explo- bour. Meanwhile, a pipeline built by the Kurdis-
sion, the pipeline had been carrying less than tan Regional Government (KRG) in 2013, which
300,000 bpd. Federal Iraqi crude piped through runs from the Taq Taq field via Khurmala, also
the line ran at less than 90,000 bpd in December, connects to the Turkish line at Fishkhabour. This
according to state oil marketer SOMO. line was designed to carry 700,000 bpd.™

P6 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 03 19•January•2022