Baghdad and Ankara failed to sign off on a one-year contract to extend the Iraq-Turkey Pipeline (ITP) treaty during Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi’s visit to Turkey this week. The treaty governing the pipeline expired on 27 July, leaving up to 220,000 b/d of Iraqi crude oil exports to Ceyhan at risk.
MEES sources say that although the two sides largely agreed on the interim agreement’s terms during Turkish energy minister Alparslan Bayraktar’s visit to Baghdad earlier this month (MEES, 10 July), disagreements persist. Baghdad is willing to accept Ankara’s demands to transport and market Turkish and potentially Syrian barrels through Turkey’s 1.5mn b/d section of the pipeline, but is worried that this might extend to third-party volumes entering the Kurdistan Pipeline. “Somo fears this could include Iranian oil trucked to Sulaymaniyah,” according to an Iraqi source. (CONTINUED - 287 WORDS)