Leslie Blair, managing director of Addax Petroleum-Middle East said that Iraq’s Oil Minister, Hussain al-Shahristani had given his conformity.
Sunday is the date we can access the pipeline…the minister has agreed and by Sunday we will be ready, Blair said.
The central government in Baghdad has long opposed the signing of agreements with foreign oil firms by the Kurdistan regional government (KRG) and withheld use of export pipelines.
The impasse has postponed for years the passing of crucial national oil and gas legislation, deterring foreign investment.
Earlier in May 2009 Baghdad said it would commence supplying oil from Kurdistan’s Tawke and Taq Taq fields. But Iraq’s oil ministry, out of principle, still opposes production sharing contracts that Kurds have settled with companies like the company and DNO International that are developing the fields.
Its refusal to recognize Kurdish contracts, even as it backs Kurdish exports, brings uncertainty to the situation.
Blair said the volume of the exports would be limited partly by the need to use trucks.
We will be doing this by truck…that is why you can’t go to a very large number by truck, because just the sheer logistics of moving hundreds of trucks is untenable the higher number you go.
(The oil) will go to a pipeline connection which is close to the Kirkuk field, to be determined by the ministry, they will actually determine where we offload the oil.
Expansions in the energy standoff between the Kurdistan region and Baghdad are keenly watched, not least because Kurdish officials have heralded a new $8 billion plan from foreign energy firms that could deliver natural gas from Kurdistan to Europe through the Nabucco pipeline.
This pipeline project is a major element in the EU’s plans to free itself from trust for gas on Russia.
But Shahristani has discarded the contract because it was done without contribution from the oil ministry.
