Kurdistan Region revenues halved

ERBIL, March 7, 2016 – The Kurdistan Region of Iraq has seen its February oil exports and revenue take a nosedive due to a prolonged pipeline outage, new figures from the Ministry of Natural Resources revealed on Monday, putting further strain on the region’s budget.

Crude exports from the Kurdistan Region of Iraq to Turkey’s Ceyhan terminal were reduced to 350,067 barrels per day over February, down from 601,811 barrels of oil per day during January. As a result, revenue from oil exports was more than halved to USD 303.9 million in February, down from around USD 650 million for the preceding month.
According to Reuters, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) needs at least USD 760 million per month to cover government salaries.

Subsequent attacks on February 17 and February 25 rendered the pipeline inoperable. Repairs began on February 27. That same weekend, the Turkish Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources said it had thwarted another attempt at sabotage of the Turkish section of the oil export infrastructure from the Kurdistan Region of Iraq transporting crude to Ceyhan.
According to Turkish sources on Monday, repairs would be completed “in a day or two.”

Also on Monday, UAE company Dana Gas announced that the company and its partners, Crescent Petroleum and Pearl Petroleum, had received an USD 8-million payment from the KRG following a November 2015 London High Court ruling in a long-standing dispute between the consortium and the KRG over arrears.

The KRG is heavily indebted to international oil companies, which it had promised to start paying according to their contractual entitlements from January 2016 onwards. The Ministry of Natural Resources has earmarked USD 70.9 million, or 23% of its February oil export revenue, for allocation to the international oil companies.

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