Eric Watkins
Senior Correspondent
LOS ANGELES, July 24 -- Iraq resumed transporting 480,000 b/d of oil through its northern pipeline after Turkey allowed exports to restart from its Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.
The Turkish government had ordered a halt to Iraqi exports on July 21 as a way of forcing Baghdad to pay an outstanding debt pegged at some $100 million for unspecified costs.
After Iraq paid half the debt on July 22, Turkish state pipeline operator Botas restarted loadings from the pipeline at Ceyhan. No statement was issued concerning the outstanding payment.
Earlier, there had been contradictory statements from Turkish and Iraqi officials about the shutdown.
An official of Turkey's state-owned Botas gas company told the Ihlas news agency that the flow of Iraqi oil exports through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline stopped July 22 for 17 hr.
He said the cause of the halt was technical not financial. "It is true that Turkey has claims. But the halt of the flow is not concerned with this debt," he said.
That contradicted earlier reports, attributed to Iraqi oil officials, that Baghdad's oil exports to Turkey were halted after a Turkish court ordered the stoppage pending settlement of a claim.
"A small Turkish court issued an order to stop Iraqi exports because of claims lodged against Iraqi entities," an official said. He said the claims were for "relatively small" amounts of money, without providing further details.
Iraq's northern pipeline, which carries crude from Kirkuk oil fields to Ceyhan, flows at about 430,000 b/d and accounts for more than 20% of Iraq's oil exports. The bulk of Iraqi crude oil exports, which stand at more than 1.5 million b/d, pass through its oil export terminal in the south of the country at the port of Basra.
Contact Eric Watkins at [email protected].