Kurdish exports resume despite Iraq impasse

For the past two years, foreign oil companies working in Kurdistan have had their hands tied. They have not been able to export their oil and have limited their development in the region. That could be set to change this weekend.

Kurdish oil is expected to start flowing through a pipeline that runs from Iraq through Kurdistan to Turkey and on to wider export markets.

Iraq’s oil ministry said yesterday it would start exports from fields in the country’s largely autonomous Kurdistan region on Sunday at an initial rate of 10,000 barrels per day.