North Kurdistan will be exporting oil to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan

PanARMENIAN.Net - Iraqi Kurds are set to begin crude oil exports via Turkey today after overcoming a dispute with the Baghdad administration over the distribution of Iraq's oil wealth.

"We consider the start of the exports as a historic moment for us," Mehmet Okutan, the Turkish project manager of the Taq Taq oil field, one of the two northern Iraqi fields that will officially start pumping crude oil. Oil from Taq Taq, along with Tawke, will be exported by the Kirkuk-Yumurtalık pipeline to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. It will be the first time the semi-autonomous Kurdish region has exported oil.



The Kurds and the Iraqi central government have long been in dispute over the management of oil fields. But a deal was worked out to allow the Kurds to ship oil through the government's northern pipeline, a major breakthrough in the dispute. The start of oil exports is also a sign of the growing trust in Kurds' ties with Turkey.



Ankara, in the past, viewed Kurdish attempts to control oil reserves in the northern Iraq as a step in direction of expanding their political influence in the region, something that could also lead to an independent Kurdish state. Now, Turkey's Genel Enerji is jointly developing the Taq Taq field with oil and gas company Addax Petroleum. Tawke is being developed by Norway's DNO International.



Okutan told reporters on Saturday that exports from Taq Taq will begin at about 40,000 barrels per day (bpd) and increase to 60,000 bpd by October. "Starting Monday, we will be able to produce 40,000 barrels per day from this facility, but starting in October, at the latest November, we will be able to produce 60,000 bpd," he said.



Tawke is set to start pumping 60,000 bpd, Kurdish authorities say. Taq Taq's output will initially travel by truck and then be pumped into a pipeline to Turkey for export. The oil will be sold by Iraq's national State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO).  Baghdad has long insisted that the Kurds do not have the right to make deals with private oil firms without its approval. It also opposes the production-sharing agreements the Kurdish government has signed with firms and there remains uncertainty over how the Kurdish administration will pay Addax, Genel and DNO for the crude they pump. The oil feud is part of a larger dispute between minority Kurds and majority Arabs over resources, land and power in Iraq, which has held up the passage of modern national oil legislation, NYTurkish.com reported.