Iraqi Kurdistan is planning to construct a new oil pipeline by the end of September, capable of transporting to Turkey approximately 300,000 barrels per day (BPD).
The new pipeline will be connected to the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline at the Fishkhabur pumping station near the Turkish border and will carry oil to the country’s southern port of Ceyhan to be shipped to international markets.
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Kurdistan Energy Minister Ashti Hawrami told Reuters that the capacity of pipeline exports will increase to around one million BPD by the end of 2015, and two million BPD by 2019, following further construction of new pumping stations.
The minister said that Kurdistan’s current oil production capacity is approximately 300,000 BPD, expected to rise to 400,000 BPD by the end of the year.
Currently, this capacity is mainly stored for export.
Oil is at the centre of a dispute between Iraq’s Arab-led central government and the ethnic northern enclave of Kurdistan. The two regions are involved in an ongoing row about control of oilfields, territory and crude revenues.
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By GlobalDataKurdistan has stopped exporting oil through the central government-controlled pipeline, which has mostly stopped its oil output apart from small amounts delivered to Turkey by road tankers.
Kurdish oil sales through the central government’s federal pipeline system could restart depending on a permanent resolution to the political and constitutional issues between Baghdad and Erbil, the Kurdish capital.
Hawrami said that the new export infrastructure is cost-effective and will allow more Iraqi oil and gas to reach the international market.
"Nowhere in the world does one million barrels per day remain stranded, so I’m confident that Kurdistan’s exports via pipeline will be a reality very soon," he said.
In February, Genel Energy said that it plans to start oil export by pipeline from its fields in Iraqi Kurdistan by 2014. Kurdistan is also planning to export natural gas to Turkey in 2016.
Image: The new oil pipeline will be connected to the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline at the Fishkhabur pumping station near the Turkish border. Photo: courtesy of PROTESA.
