Second tanker of Kurdish oil leaves Turkey despite Baghdad's warning

A second shipment of Iraqi Kurdish crude has sailed from the Turkish port of Ceyhan, industry and government sources said, increasing the stakes in a battle with Baghdad over control of oil sales from the autonomous region.

The United Emblem suezmax tanker, carrying 1 million barrels of crude, sailed from the harbor on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast on June 10, Reuters AIS Live ship tracking showed.

The shipment is the second to leave Ceyhan in three weeks after arriving by pipeline. At least 2 million barrels of Kurdish crude are now at sea, despite protests from Baghdad that only the central government has the right to sell Iraqi oil.

Iraq’s oil minister condemned the exports. “What happened in my view was the biggest mistake that has been made by the Kurds and the Turks... and the Iraqi government will take severe measures,” Abdul Kareem Luaibi told a news briefing in Vienna on June 9.

He repeated that Baghdad would sue the Turkish government and Turkish state owned pipeline operator Botaş for facilitating the sale of the crude. Baghdad was in the process informing the United Nations about Ankara’s role in the shipment, he added.

“We have no choice but to go to arbitration and they [Turkish government] have been informed,” Luaibi said.

The Kurdish Regional Government has said the oil shipments are designed to show Baghdad it will exercise control over its own oil sales, but so far it has failed to find a buyer for its first tanker shipment, which left Ceyhan over two weeks ago.

The hunt for buyers

Last week the first tanker, the United Leadership, sailed away from Morocco after the North African country declined to let the vessel unload its 1-million-barrel...