Oil supply from northern Iraq came under new jeopardy Oct. 15 as Iraqi military troops reclaimed Kirkuk from Peshmerga forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi called on the military to “impose security on Kirkuk” after warning that a Sept. 25 referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan put the country “in danger of partition.”
Kurdish voters overwhelmingly supported negotiations toward separation from Iraq (OGJ Online, Sept. 28, 2017).
The Iraqi military initially seized control of the K1 air base north of Kirkuk, an airport, the headquarters of North Oil Co., and other positions and later marched into the city center as thousands of Kurds fled.
The city, officially outside the semiautonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq, has been under Peshmerga control since March 2014.
There were no reports of disruption to Kurdish production of about 600,000 b/d, about half of which comes from giant Kirkuk field.
The Iraqi portion of the Iraq-Turkey pipeline linking Kirkuk and nearby fields with the Mediterranean has been idle since 2014, damaged during fighting by Iraqi and Peshmerga forces against Islamic State jihadists.
About 580,000 b/d of oil produced in Iraqi Kurdistan, half from Kirkuk field, now flows through two spurs in Kurdish territory that link with the trans-Turkey pipeline at Fishkhabur on the border, according to the International Energy Agency.
About 40,000 b/d of Kurdish oil enters Turkey by truck.
Turkey has threatened to close its portion of the pipeline if Kurdish independence proceeds. It worries that an independent Kurdistan would incite separatist militancy in its Kurdish population, a concern shared by Iran.
Oil sales are crucial to the KRG, which has accumulated crippling debt since crude prices began slumping in mid-2014.
