Al-Kurdi
FULL MEMBER
- Joined
- Mar 15, 2014
- Messages
- 1,149
- Reaction score
- -3
- Country
- Location
Iraqi Kurdistan Set To Become An Independent World Oil Power
Last Thursday, after ISIS forces captured Mosul and Kurdish fighters had moved into Kirkuk, I wrote a piece about how the Kurdish Regional Government might end up being the "unlikely losers” in the ensuing chaos. Its peshmerga forces were in danger of being stretched thin. Its two renegade tankers full of oil had no buyers. Surely, it seemed last Thursday, that President Obama would never dream of allowing Baghdad (and especially the Green Zone) to come under ISIS attack. Wouldn’t the U.S. prop up Maliki and ensure the survival of Iraqi federalism?
No. That article was wrong. As numerous readers were all too happy to point out. The Kurd forces appear to be comfortably holding their territory. The Baghdad airport is reportedly under attack. ISIS militias have brutally machine gunned hundreds of government forces. The U.S. government is evacuating diplomats from the Green Zone (a la the fall of Saigon). Iran is said to have sent Revolutionary Guard forces to Baghdad. Obama has urged Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to sort it all out diplomatically.
Iraq was an artificial state to begin with, its borders drawn by British bureaucrats with no regard to tribal territories. The consensus now, especially among Kurdish people, is that this “Iraq” will soon cease to exist altogether.
The Kurdish region is blessed with an estimated 45 billion barrels of oil, more than Libya. Exxon, Chevron CVX +0.91%, Total and many others have invested billions there to explore and drill virgin fields in concessions doled out by the Kurdish Regional Government. The KRG had not had any control over the supergiant Kirkuk field, which produced more than 650,000 barrels per day at its peak more than a decade ago. Like all mature fields in Iraq, Kirkuk was under the purview of the oil ministry in Baghdad, which contracted last year with BP to start rehabbing the field. The Kurds opposed the BP deal. With or without Kirkuk, the Kurdish region could readily sustain 400,000 barrels per day of oil production.
Baghdad’s control over Kirkuk may well be history now that Kurd forces are at long last in control of Kirkuk and have no intention of leaving. Writing on Twitter TWTR +0.3%, Fanar Haddad, of the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore, wrote: “Is it just me or has Kirkuk, an issue of massive complexity & contention & the possible source of a future war, been solved overnight?”
After the events of the last few days it seems the Kurds can now, at last, make their own rules. So what does that mean for those tankers full of Kurdish crude? The ones loaded in Turkey, which have drawn condemnation from Baghdad, which called the shipments illegal and threatened legal action against anyone who dared to buy them? They are reportedly still floating off the coasts of Malta and Morocco. With Kurdish independence appearing to grow closer every day, perhaps this will be the week when the world’s oil buyers put aside any concern of being blacklisted by Baghdad, and step up to buy them.
When it happens it will open the floodgates for Kurdish exports, and initiate a flood of cash to the Kurdish Regional Government, which is now moving inexorably closer to becoming an independent state, and a major world oil power.
Kurdistan. A world apart from Iraq.
Iraqi Kurdistan Set To Become An Independent World Oil Power - Forbes
Last Thursday, after ISIS forces captured Mosul and Kurdish fighters had moved into Kirkuk, I wrote a piece about how the Kurdish Regional Government might end up being the "unlikely losers” in the ensuing chaos. Its peshmerga forces were in danger of being stretched thin. Its two renegade tankers full of oil had no buyers. Surely, it seemed last Thursday, that President Obama would never dream of allowing Baghdad (and especially the Green Zone) to come under ISIS attack. Wouldn’t the U.S. prop up Maliki and ensure the survival of Iraqi federalism?
No. That article was wrong. As numerous readers were all too happy to point out. The Kurd forces appear to be comfortably holding their territory. The Baghdad airport is reportedly under attack. ISIS militias have brutally machine gunned hundreds of government forces. The U.S. government is evacuating diplomats from the Green Zone (a la the fall of Saigon). Iran is said to have sent Revolutionary Guard forces to Baghdad. Obama has urged Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to sort it all out diplomatically.
Iraq was an artificial state to begin with, its borders drawn by British bureaucrats with no regard to tribal territories. The consensus now, especially among Kurdish people, is that this “Iraq” will soon cease to exist altogether.
The Kurdish region is blessed with an estimated 45 billion barrels of oil, more than Libya. Exxon, Chevron CVX +0.91%, Total and many others have invested billions there to explore and drill virgin fields in concessions doled out by the Kurdish Regional Government. The KRG had not had any control over the supergiant Kirkuk field, which produced more than 650,000 barrels per day at its peak more than a decade ago. Like all mature fields in Iraq, Kirkuk was under the purview of the oil ministry in Baghdad, which contracted last year with BP to start rehabbing the field. The Kurds opposed the BP deal. With or without Kirkuk, the Kurdish region could readily sustain 400,000 barrels per day of oil production.
Baghdad’s control over Kirkuk may well be history now that Kurd forces are at long last in control of Kirkuk and have no intention of leaving. Writing on Twitter TWTR +0.3%, Fanar Haddad, of the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore, wrote: “Is it just me or has Kirkuk, an issue of massive complexity & contention & the possible source of a future war, been solved overnight?”
After the events of the last few days it seems the Kurds can now, at last, make their own rules. So what does that mean for those tankers full of Kurdish crude? The ones loaded in Turkey, which have drawn condemnation from Baghdad, which called the shipments illegal and threatened legal action against anyone who dared to buy them? They are reportedly still floating off the coasts of Malta and Morocco. With Kurdish independence appearing to grow closer every day, perhaps this will be the week when the world’s oil buyers put aside any concern of being blacklisted by Baghdad, and step up to buy them.
When it happens it will open the floodgates for Kurdish exports, and initiate a flood of cash to the Kurdish Regional Government, which is now moving inexorably closer to becoming an independent state, and a major world oil power.
Kurdistan. A world apart from Iraq.
Iraqi Kurdistan Set To Become An Independent World Oil Power - Forbes
