Iraqi oil that is currently being exported from the Kirkuk oil field through an export pipeline to Turkey has dropped because of power outages, an official at state-run North Oil Co. said today.
Export are currently running at 100,000 barrels per day (bpd), compared with 133,000 bpd in October, the official said.
The pipeline delivers crude to Turkish terminal of Ceyhan, on the Mediterranean. It also carries crude produced in fields developed by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), an autonomous region in northern Iraq governed by the Kurds.
OPEC’s second-largest producer after Saudi Arabia, Iraq exports most of its oil through the southern ports, on the Gulf.
Total exports for September, including the KRG, were 3.871 million bpd, of which 3.276 million bpd were shipped from the southern ports, according to the last figures published by the nation’s state-oil marketer SOMO, in October.
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North Oil resumed exports through the Kurdish-controlled pipeline in August, after a five-month halt caused by a dispute on oil revenue sharing between Baghdad and the KRG.
Kurdish Peshmerga forces moved into Kirkuk, which is supposed to be under the authority of the Baghdad-based central government, after Iraqi Security Forces fled a Daesh onslaught in 2014. The KRG has rejected any notion that it will return control back to Baghdad once Mosul is recaptured.
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