Iraq Parliament Clears Longstanding Pay Dispute over Kurdish Oil

Last updated: 2025/02/03 at 7:19 AM

Editorial Team 5 months ago

Iraq’s parliament handed a long-awaited plan to spice up funds to grease corporations within the semi-autonomous Kurdistan area, a step towards resuming exports from the realm that had been halted virtually two years in the past.

The meeting on Sunday voted in favor of a plan permitted by the cupboard in November that might amend the price range to permit Baghdad to pay out $16 a barrel for oil manufacturing and transportation, based on an announcement.

Whereas that moved ahead Iraq’s negotiations for a cope with the Kurdistan Regional Authorities, it was nonetheless under the $26 a barrel that Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani has mentioned oil corporations get from their present contracts within the area.

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Value disputes have held up a full restart of flows from Kurdistan, retaining about half one million barrels a day of provide away from international markets. The exports had been beforehand despatched by way of pipeline to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan in Turkey.

Restarting the conduit might pose a dilemma for Baghdad, which is obligated to scale back crude output as a part of an OPEC+ settlement, however has been struggling to stick to promised cutbacks. Iraq is trying to improve revenues to rebuild its shattered financial system.

The deadlock kicked off in March 2023 after Turkey halted the pipeline following an arbitration court docket’s order to pay Iraq $1.5 billion. Ankara, which claimed the pipe was shut as a result of it wanted repairs after two large earthquakes in February that yr, later mentioned that it was prepared for operations and it was as much as Iraq to renew flows.

That by no means occurred as Iraq sought to take full management of the Kurdish output. The federal authorities and oil corporations working within the nation’s north, together with DNO ASA, Genel Power Plc and Gulf Keystone Petroleum Ltd., blamed one another for the delays.

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