The Kurds in Syria have become almost autonomous since the beginning of the Syrian civil war. The Kurds in Turkey are on their way to a truce with the Turkish government. The Kurds in Iraq are becoming increasingly independent. They act as if they are autonomous. Now, according to Reuters, they are shipping their oil through Iran rather than through Iraq. This gives the Kurds another opportunity to show their independence. And it gives Iran another opportunity to stir the regional pot.
Iraqi Kurdistan opens official crude oil trade route via Iran-sources
ARBIL, Iraq/DUBAI, Aug 7 (Reuters) -
Iraq's Kurdistan region is exporting crude oil by truck to an Iranian
port for shipping to Asia, industry sources say, using a trade route
that is likely to anger both Baghdad and Washington.
In a dispute largely over revenue
sharing, Kurdistan's crude exports through a pipeline controlled by
the Iraqi central government dried up last year. However, it is
transporting about 50,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude and
condensates by road from the landlocked region through Turkey.
Now the Kurdistan Regional Government
(KRG) has approved a second route for crude through Iran used
previously only for petroleum products, the sources said.
For the past two months, crude has been
trucked from Kurdish fields over the border to Iran's Bandar Imam
Khomeini (BIK) terminal, 900 km (560 miles) to the south on the Gulf.
Amounts are unclear but could be as much as 30,000 bpd, they said.
One industry source in Kurdistan said
the regional government in Arbil was anxious not to put out either of
the region's powerful neighbours, Turkey and Iran, in transporting
the crude. "It's a political compromise," said the source,
who declined to be identified. "They cannot ignore the Iranians
and go all the way ... with the Turks. They have to balance."
However, it is not clear what Iran,
which faces huge problems in selling its own oil products because of
international sanctions, gets out of the arrangement.
Asked about the route, the Kurdish
government did not comment on the record, although a KRG official
source denied any crude was going through Iran yet.
Oil lies at the heart of the dispute
between the Arab-led Iraqi central government and the ethnic
Kurdish-run northern enclave. At issue are control of oilfields,
territory and crude revenues shared between the two administrations.
"We have made it very clear that
the only acceptable option for oil exports is through the federal
pipeline network," a senior Iraqi oil official said. "We
consider any other trade, whether it be through Iran or Turkey, as
smuggling. It's illegal."
Baghdad claims sole authority over oil
exploration and export. It has already accused the Kurds in the past
of smuggling crude via Iran and keeping the revenue for itself.
The KRG says its right to exploit and
export the reserves under its soil is enshrined in Iraq's federal
constitution, which was drawn up following the U.S.-led invasion of
2003, and has passed its own hydrocarbons legislation.
Arbil has already antagonised Baghdad
by signing exploration and production deals on its own terms with
firms including Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Total, and is currently
laying the final stretch of an independent export pipeline to Turkey.
Fuel oil and naphtha have moved by
truck from Kurdistan through Iran for years, because Kurdish domestic
sales contracts allow the sale of these products outside Iraq.
Washington, a long-standing ally of the
KRG, has previously pressured Arbil to stop this trade as it tightens
the sanctions imposed over Iran's disputed nuclear programme.
"We have advised Arbil in the past
not to engage in business with Iran and will continue to do so,"
a U.S. diplomat said when asked how Washington would view the KRG's
official approval for crude exports through Iran.
