Iraq's Kurds Have Right to Sell Oil While Squeezed by Baghdad
Iraq's Kurdish region has the right to keep selling oil as long as the Baghdad government keeps cutting its budget, the head of the Kurdish parliament's energy committee said on Tuesday, as an oil cargo off Texas was set to be seized at Baghdad's request. "The KRG (Kurdish Regional Government) has the right to sell oil if Baghdad continues to cut KRG's budget, disrupt the livelihood of its people and impose an embargo," Sherko Jawdat told Reuters. U.S. authorities were set on Tuesday to seize a cargo of crude worth more than $100 million from Iraqi Kurdistan anchored off the Texas coast after a judge approved a request from Baghdad, raising the stakes in the oil dispute between Iraq's central government and the Kurdish autonomous region.
Kurdistan defies Baghdad in Crude Oil Sale
Move likely to infuriate Iraqi government in Baghdad; first 1 million barrel cargo being loaded at Ceyhan, Turkey. Tanker scheduled to sail later on Thursday, buyer not identified. Iraqi Kurdistan started loading oil from its new pipeline for shipment from a Turkish port on Thursday, defying the Baghdad government, which claims sole authority over Iraqi crude and declares any independently sold oil as 'smuggled'. The cargo of 1 million barrels of crude oil was being loaded on a tanker in the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz told Reuters on Thursday. "Loading will be completed today," Yildiz said, declining to name the buyer.
