Top U.S. and Iraqi officials have discussed the potential resumption of oil exports from Iraq’s semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan and the role of the U.S. oil companies operating in the country, the Iraqi foreign ministry said on Monday.
Oil exports from Kurdistan have now been halted for two and a half years, after they were shut in in March 2023 due to a dispute over who should authorize the Kurdish exports. Despite some breakthroughs in negotiations in recent months, the disagreements have continued.
Before the halt to exports, oil supply from Kurdistan averaged more than 400,000 barrels per day (bpd).
Iraq has said exports were to resume in the middle of July, but then a wave of drone attacks on oilfields in Kurdistan forced companies to shut in production and plans for the pipeline restart were delayed.
In a meeting to discuss ways to remove barriers to restart the oil exports, Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Fuad Hussein, met this weekend with the U.S. Chargé d’Affaires of the U.S. Mission to Iraq, Steven Fagin.
The talks focused on “the outstanding issues between the oil companies operating in the Kurdistan Region, and ways to address them in a manner that allows for the resumption of oil exports from the oil fields in the Region,” the Iraqi foreign ministry said in a statement carried by the Kurdistan 24 news outlet.
The talks also addressed “the course of bilateral relations between Iraq and the United States, particularly with regard to the role of American oil companies operating in Iraq,” the ministry added.
Earlier this month, the federal Iraqi Oil Minister, Hayan Abdul Ghani, said on August 6 that crude oil exports from Kurdistan to a Turkish Mediterranean port would resume at any moment.
However, it appears there are outstanding issues that Iraq needs to resolve with the foreign oil companies operating in Kurdistan before restarting exports to the Turkish coast.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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