Kurds May Have Oil To Export, But Buyers Are Harder To Find
Kurdish security forces, the peshmerga, have taken over two major oil fields near Kirkuk, in northern Iraq. The fields have the potential to put billions of dollars into the coffers of the Kurdish regional government.
But there's a hitch: Even if the Kurdish government has control of the oil, it doesn't necessarily mean it can export it — thanks to the Baghdad government and the U.S.
On May 22, about 4 million barrels of crude oil surged through a pipeline running from the autonomous region in northern Iraq, which is controlled by Kurds, to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. The crude was loaded into four tankers commissioned by the Kurdistan Regional Government, or KRG. One tanker, the United Leadership, sailed through the Mediterranean toward Morocco — where the first alleged buyer of the oil was, says Ben Lando, editor-in-chief of the Iraq Oil Report.
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