IRAQ/KURDISTAN...."Behind the Scenes of Conflict"... OIL...MAPS and Background!

[KoKo]

Exxon, BP Evacuate Iraq Workers as Oil Drilling Continues
By Nayla Razzouk, Bradley Olson and Kadhim Ajrash Jun 19, 2014 5:36 AM ET


Exxon Mobil Corp. and BP Plc began removing employees from Iraq, OPEC’s second-largest oil producer, after Islamist militants seized cities north of Baghdad and attempted to capture a refinery.

Exxon evacuated some workers from the West Qurna oil field, according to a person familiar with the company’s Iraq operations. BP Plc removed non-essential workers, Chief Executive Officer Bob Dudley said June 17. Malaysia’s Petroliam Nasional Bhd. moved 28 of its 166 Iraq employees to Dubai, the company said by e-mail yesterday. Royal Dutch Shell Plc isn’t evacuating staff yet and is ready to do so, Andy Brown, head of Shell Upstream International, said in an interview in Moscow.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-18/isil-battles-elite-iraq-troops-for-nation-s-biggest-oil-refinery.html

Related:

------------
Oil Odyssey Offers Glimpse of Kurdish Independence in Iraq
By Selcan Hacaoglu, Jack Fairweather and Nayla Razzouk Jun 19, 2014 2:02 PM ET




A tanker containing a million barrels of crude oil is floating around the Mediterranean, and any buyer will be helping Iraq’s Kurds to win greater independence.

The oil aboard is available at half-price, an official involved in the trade told Bloomberg, an assertion denied by the Kurdish administration. It's at the center of a fight over ownership between the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan, which pumped and shipped the crude from its territory in northern Iraq, and the central government in Baghdad, which claims the rights to all oil revenue.

Kurdish Peshmerga armed forces took control of northern Iraq’s key oil hub, Kirkuk, after militant Islamists routed the Baghdad government’s army last week. The oil dispute has raised the possibility of the Kurdish region achieving financial self-sufficiency to go with the expanding territory.

“If that tanker docks, Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government will take an important step toward independence,” Nihat Ali Ozcan, an analyst at the Economic Policy Research Foundation in Ankara, said by phone on June 13.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-18/half-price-kurdish-oil-threatens-iraq-breakup-with-turkish-help.html

---------------

Turkey’s Role

Turkey, the conduit for the Kurdish oil, also sees Kurdish crude oil exports through its Mediterranean port of Ceyhan as “entirely legitimate” and will continue as long as oil is sold, Turkey’s Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said in an interview in Moscow today. The next shipment is scheduled for June 22, he said at the World Petroleum Congress.

“At the moment, 100,000 barrels to 120,000 barrels of oil flow from northern Iraq per day,” Yildiz said. “About 2.3 million barrels of oil are stored in Ceyhan.”

Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said on Iraqiya television on June 17 that Turkey and the KRG are mistaken if they’re calculating that the current chaos in Iraq will leave the Baghdad government unable to defend its interests.

“The Iraqi people won’t forget those who conspired against them during tough times,” al-Shahristani said. “Turkey should be aware that this is like playing with fire. This is plundering the wealth of Iraq.”
U.S. Mediation

Brett McGurk, the deputy assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, reiterated U.S. opposition to any oil exports that aren’t approved by Baghdad. The U.S. has “informed all interested parties that any such transactions exposes them to potential legal risks,” and proposed a compromise plan to both sides, he wrote on Twitter on May 23.
Photographer: Onur Coban/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Kurdish Peshmerga forces stand guard in Kirkuk.

As the Kurds went ahead with pumping the oil, the Baghdad government announced it was suspending the accord under which 17 percent of all oil revenue goes to the Kurdish authorities in their regional capital, Erbil.

“The U.S. failed totally to mediate between Erbil and Baghdad on this issue,” and their standoff has now sparked “growing U.S. fears that Kurdistan is headed for independence,” David Ottaway, senior scholar in the Middle East program at the Wilson Center in Washington, said June 10.
Oil Price

The violence in Iraq since last week has amplified such concerns and pushed oil prices higher. Brent crude posted the biggest jump in almost a year last week. It rose above $115 a barrel in London today, reaching a nine-month high.

Militants of the Sunni Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant seized Mosul, the largest northern city, on June 10 and have captured other towns. As Baghdad’s armed forces fled, the Kurds advanced into Kirkuk, which they’ve long claimed should be part of their autonomous region. Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), BP Plc (BP/) and Turkey’s state oil company TPAO began removing employees from Iraq, OPEC’s second-largest oil producer, as the insurgents attempted to capture a major refinery.

Even without Kirkuk, the Kurdish region has crude reserves it estimates at 45 billion barrels, a quarter of Iraq’s total. Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the KRG has claimed the right to handle shipments from its territory.

In 2004, a year after the U.S. invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, the KRG struck an agreement with the central government in Baghdad to share oil revenue. The deal left key questions unresolved, including the fate of Kirkuk and how to share untapped oil fields.
Turkish Storage

Since 2011, KRG has attracted four big oil companies -- Chevron Corp. (CVX), Exxon Mobil Corp., Hess Corp. (HES) and Total SA (FP) -- as well as 30 or so smaller ones. Tony Hayward, chief executive office of Genel Energy Plc (GENL), the biggest oil and gas operator in Kurdistan, was among those who risked the wrath of the Iraqi government to truck Kurdish oil to Turkey.

Trucks have been superseded since January by a new Kurdish link to the main northern pipeline, which runs from Kirkuk to Turkey’s Mediterranean oil terminal at Ceyhan. Turkey agreed to handle the shipment and store it separately from the main Iraqi crude. It allocated seven of 12 storage tanks at Ceyhan for Kurdish oil.

The Iraqi government initiated legal action against Turkey, taking the case to the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris. Asim Jihad, an Iraqi oil ministry spokesman, said a lawsuit has also been filed domestically against the KRG’s Ministry of Natural Resources.
Higher Fees
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-18/half-price-kurdish-oil-threatens-iraq-breakup-with-turkish-help.html