BAGHDAD: Oil flows through the Kurdistan Regional Government’s export system fell sharply in early August due to pipeline outages and production declines following recent attacks on an oilfield in northern Iraqi, a number of sources have confirmed. While the recent pipeline outages were due to a technical glitch which may already have been rectified, analysts expect the loss of output from the Bai Hassan oil field, where saboteurs have damaged production facilities and heightened concerns for future security, to last for months.
The KRG’s pipeline to Turkey, which is the only pipeline currently exporting crude from northern Iraq, has been down for about 80 hours so far this month, an international oil company official familiar with pipeline operations said. The outages have been caused by an electricity transmission malfunction at the PS-3 pumping station in Silopi, just over the border in Turkey, said the IOC official, an industry official in Erbil, and an industry official at Turkey’s Ceyhan port. In July, the export pipeline sent 511,000 b/d of crude to market, the KRG Ministry of Natural Resources reported in early August.
The pipeline first went down on the afternoon of August 5, the Ceyhan official said. He and the IOC official said exports resumed briefly on the morning of August 7, but only for a few hours. Exports came back online early August 9, initially flowing at 458,000 b/d, the Ceyhan official said. Temporarily bolstered by crude from storage built up at producing fields during the pipeline outages, exports had risen to 573,000 b/d by Thursday but were unlikely to stay at that rate, the official said. Assuming the pipeline stays online, KRG exports for the rest of this month are expected to be significantly lower than the July average following a July 31 attack on the 170,000-180,000 b/d Bai Hassan oil field northwest of Kirkuk.
