By Rowena Edwards, Can Sezer and Ahmed Rasheed
LONDON, April 14 (Reuters) - Oil exports from northern
Iraq to the Turkish port of Ceyhan remain at a standstill almost
three weeks after an arbitration case ruled Ankara owed Baghdad
compensation for unauthorised exports.
The March 23 arbitration ruling by the International Chamber
of Commerce (ICC) ordered Turkey to pay Baghdad damages of $1.5
billion for unauthorised exports by the Kurdistan Regional
Government (KRG) between 2014 and 2018.
In response, Turkey halted the flows of 450,000 barrels per
day. It wants to negotiate the payment and resolve a second
arbitration case regarding unauthorised flows since 2018 before
it restarts them, according to sources.
Pipeline operators have yet to receive any instruction to
restart flows, a source familiar with the exports told Reuters
on Friday on condition of anonymity.
Two other sources told Reuters that Baghdad has yet to
request Turkey reopens the pipeline.
Turkey is seeking in-person negotiations relating to the
$1.5 billion it was ordered to pay Iraq in damages, a separate
source told Reuters.
Iraq's state-owned marketer SOMO is waiting to finalise
some technical issues essential to restarting flows with the
KRG's ministry of natural resources, two Iraqi oil officials
told Reuters.
Iraq's federal government in Baghdad and the KRG on April 4
signed a temporary agreement hoping to get the flows restarted.
Lost revenue from the halt for the KRG stands at around $550
million, according to Reuters calculations based on exports of
375,000 barrels per day, the KRG's historic discount against
Brent crude and 20 days of outages.
The Turkish energy ministry, Iraq's oil ministry and the KRG
did not respond to requests for comment.
Iraq has also petitioned a U.S. federal court to enforce the
arbitration award against Turkey, according to documents filed
with the court.
(Reporting by Rowena Edwards in London, Can Sezer in Istanbul,
Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad, and Maha el Dahan in Dubai; editing by
Jason Neely)
