Kurds smuggling oil into Iran--- UNBELIEVABOIL lol
Editorial www.nooz.comScores of tankers carry crude oil from Kurdistan, smuggle it to Iran Noozz Editorial
May 15 2008 1:0
Journalists from Al-Sabah Al-Jadeed reported these acitivites in their report, claiming that the smuggling takes place with "official endorsements" by the authorities in Baghdad and by the provincial Kurdish government.
Curde oil is loaded onto oil trucks at the Bayji refinery, Iraq's largest, and is then transported across Iraqi Kurdistan and into Iran through the border crossing points at Sulaymaniyya and Hajj Omran. The companies behind the operation were not named, and the report says that little is known about them.
Reporters from the newspaper contacted Edward Jibli, director of the Hajj Omran customs office on the Iraq-Iran border and asked him for details about these operations.
He said: "Many tankers carrying crude oil cross the Iraqi borders every day towards Iran," but he did not disclose the number of these tankers saying, "The load of each tanker is between 10,000 to 35,000 liters of crude oil, and they [customs officers] receive 5,000 dinars [less than $3] per tonne.
"This process has been going on for at least a month, and the crude oil comes from Kurdistan and from Bayji with the permission of Kurdistan's ministry of natural resources in large oil tankers that carry Irbil license plates. The cargo is then taken to the other side of the border and emptied in Iranian oil tankers that take the crude elsewhere."
He did not establish where "elsewhere" is.
Asked about the number of tankers that cross the borders daily, Jibli refused to confirm or deny rumours that the convoys reach over 20 trucks, but said: "You can get the details from Kurdistan's ministry of natural resources."
The Kurdish newspaper Jawdir on Tuesday published a report about large numbers of oil trucks carrying crude oil from the Hajji Omran border point to Iran.
Authorites in Iraqi Kurdistan until recently have been unable to sell crude oil on the lucrative international market as they do not hold export permits from the Oil Ministry in Baghdad, which has pressurised neighbouring states into rejecting any attempts to do so. However the Kurdistan Regional Government announced at the end of April that for the first time they will be able to formally produce oil in the fields of Taqtaq and Duhok and export it to markets through the Ceyhan Port in Turkey.
The revelation of the capacity of oil production in Kurdistan Region came after the political and economic disputes that occurred between the Iraqi central government and Kurdistan Region in the last few months over the 15 oil contracts that KRG has signed with a number of Turkish, Norwegian and American companies.
Oil Mafias
In addition to this apparent state sanctioned 'smuggling' oil smuggling across Iraq by criminal elements has been rife, although recently security forces have attempted to tackle the phenomenon. Oil is either siphoned off in crude form from unprotected sections of pipeline or as refined fuel, directly from refineries.
A London based energy analyst told Noozz that 'oil mafias' have muscled in on a lucrative trade and are present across the country, with fuel from the Bayji refinery the single largest source of illegal supplies.
Wide-scale oil smuggling operation is believed to continue in Basra via the Shatt al-Arab waterway and into Iran. This has prompted Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to undertake decisive military measures against groups and illegal militias that stand behind such oil smuggling in the recent "Knights' Charge" security operation in Basra. This security operation is credited as having had some success in limiting the illegal flow of Iraqi oil into Iran.
A report in April in Kurdish daily Rozhnama claimed that the crude produced in the Zakho fields in northern Iraq is being sold to private refinery companies, and that up to 25% of crude oil fed to the Sulaymaniyah refinery ends up on the black market.
Smuggled Kurdish crude sells for around $72 dollars a barrel on the black market, a sharp discount on the $110 a barrel that crude was selling for on international markets at the time of the report.
AI
