Page 6 - MEOG Week 45

MEOG PIPELINES & TRANSPORT MEOG

Kurdish oil flows resume as

Iraq fails to comply with cuts

KURDISTAN OFFICIALS from the Kurdistan Regional Gov- around $10mn per day. “Our estimation is that
ernment (KRG) confirmed late last week that oil the KRG has lost $100mn except the cost of
flows had resumed through a pipeline that had repairing it,” Mohammad Sa’d al-din, the Kurd-
been attacked a week earlier. istan Parliament’s Finance Committee deci-
Speaking to S&P Global Platts, an official sion-maker, told Kurdistan 24.
said: “The pipeline is now functional and the oil Also on November 5, the State Oil Market-
is flowing like before.” ing Organization (SOMO) said that Kurdistan
The KRG’s 600,000 barrel per day pipeline was responsible for 446,000 bpd of Iraq’s total
connects Dohuk to the metering station at Fish- 3.482mn bpd average daily crude production.
khabour on the Turkish border where crude is Kurdish exports averaged 416,000 bpd, a drop
fed into the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline. of 21,000 bpd from September.
The conduit takes oil from the Taq Taq field
via Khurmala to Fishkhabour and was designed Iraqi non-compliance
to carry 700,000 bpd. Flow volumes have not The Federal Iraqi figure shows that, rather than
been provided, though it is understood that Erbil the deeper cuts pledged by Baghdad between
uses the pipeline to export the vast majority of its September and December, production increased
450,000 bpd output, while around 100,000 bpd by 242,000 bpd from September and remains
of Federal Iraqi crude is also exported this way around 38,000 bpd above its August-December
from the Kirkuk fields. quota.
The KRG officials also did not offer any indi- Meanwhile, the country’s exports also
cation of whether production facilities had been expanded during the month, by more than
damaged as a result of fighting among militia 200,000 bpd compared to the previous month.
groups in the region. Total Iraqi oil exports stood at 2.968mn bpd for
While the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) October with revenues totalling $3.43bn, based
has claimed responsibility for the attack, the on an average price of $38.48 per barrel.
KRG has launched an investigation to deter- Baghdad is reported to be among several
mine who was involved. In a statement, the PKK OPEC member countries opposed to extending
said that it had target infrastructure belonging to the current 7.7mn bpd reductions of the OPEC+
Turkish pipeline operator BOTAS in the Pagok group, though Oil Minister Ihsan Abdul Jabbar
region of the city of Merdin in the north-east of has denied this and said that Iraq would back any
Turkey. decision made by its partners.
Meanwhile, local media quoted government The original agreement would see production
officials as saying that the attack had cost Erbil cuts being relaxed by 2mn bpd from January.™

P6 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 45 11•November•2020