The Gulf Time Newspaper One of the finest business newspapers in the UAE brought to you by our professional writers and editors.
Bloomberg
Iraqi oil shipments of about 105,000 barrels a day were halted briefly after Kurdish troops seized control of a pumping station in disputed Kirkuk province and demanded that crude shipments to the country’s central government be stopped.
Oil from Kirkuk stopped flowing into a Kurdish-built export pipeline to Turkey after fighters loyal to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan political party took control of the province’s main pumping station, Najat Hussein, a member of Kirkuk’s oil, energy and industry committee, said by phone. The shipments resumed several hours later, he said.
The PUK, one of two parties in the Kurdistan Regional Government, has controlled much of Kirkuk since sending forces to protect oil facilities there after IS captured swathes of northern Iraq in 2014. Kirkuk lies outside the KRG-run Kurdish region and is a potential flashpoint between Kurds and Iraqi Arabs. The KRG struck a deal with the federal government in Baghdad last August to share revenue from Kirkuk oil exported through the Kurdish-operated pipeline.