ERBIL: Oil exports from Iraq’s Kurdistan region through Turkey rose in April to an average of 511,888 barrels per day (bpd) despite the ongoing suspension of flows from the disputed Kirkuk fields. The figure is up from 327,371 bpd in March, when exports were hit by a lengthy outage of the pipeline to Turkey, but still below a peak of around 600,000 bpd earlier this year. In March, Baghdad instructed the state-run North Oil Company (NOC) that operates Kirkuk to stop pumping crude through the pipeline to put pressure on Kurdistan, which has been exporting independently.
Revenue from the region’s exports from the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan totalled $376,395,901 in April, of which $58,895,901 was allocated to oil producers in the region, the region’s ministry of natural resources said. An additional cargo of 1,025,828 barrels of oil was allocated to a contractor against its 2015 prepayments, the ministry added.