Iraq restarts some Kirkuk oil exports after year-long halt

The new Baghdad government has agreed a deal with Kurdistan's semi-autonomous region.

Iraq has resumed exports from its oil fields around Kirkuk, one year after the city was seized by federal forces from the autonomous Kurdish administration in the north of the country. AP

Iraq restarted exports on Friday of Kirkuk oil, halted a year ago due to a standoff between the central government and Kurdistan's semi-autonomous region, after a new government in Baghdad agreed a tentative deal with Erbil.

The development is a win for the US government, which has been urging both sides to settle the dispute and resume flows to help address a shortage of Iranian crude in the region after Washington imposed new sanctions on Tehran.

Flows resumed at a modest level of around 50,000-60,000 barrels per day (bpd) compared with a peak of 300,000 seen last year and it was not clear when and by how much they would rise, industry sources said.

A spokesman for Iraq's Oil Ministry, Asim Jihad, confirmed exports had restarted, adding that an agreement had been reached to resume flows at 50-100,000 bpd.

"The resumption of Kirkuk shipments of between 50-100,000 barrels per day will not add to Iraq's total exports," Mr Jihad said.

"We will have a balance and that means Kirkuk shipments which were supplying some of the northern refineries will be compensated from the south."

The deal signals that new Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi and Oil Minister Thamir Ghadhban are ready to work with Erbil despite previous tensions and a failed independence referendum in September 2017.

The halting of exports from Kirkuk in October 2017 stopped almost 300,000 bpd flowing out of Iraq towards Turkey and international markets - causing a net revenue loss of some $8 billion (Dh29 bn)  over the past year.

Most of Iraq's exports come from southern fields, but Kirkuk is one of the biggest and oldest oilfields in the Middle East, estimated to contain 9 billion barrels of recoverable oil.

Exports have been on hold since Iraqi government forces retook Kirkuk from Kurdish authorities in 2017. The Kurds had taken control of Kirkuk and its oilfields after ISIS militants drove the Iraqi army out in 2014, and Kurdish forces, in turn, ejected the militants.

The pipeline Baghdad once used for export via Turkey was wrecked by ISIS - leaving only one working.

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Kurdistan is producing and exporting some 400,000 bpd via the pipeline. Resumed flows from Kirkuk will lift this to 450,000 - 500,000 bpd, but short of the 700,000 bpd the Kurdish region had exported at some points during 2017.

Iraqi authorities say they still need to feed local refineries, where Kirkuk's output has been diverted over the past year. The refineries are set to receive some 185,000 bpd under the latest deal, the sources said.

Baghdad and Erbil have yet to find a compromise over maximum flow levels as well as budget transfers from the central government to Erbil - something the two sides have struggled to agree on for many years.