In July, Massoud Barzani, the emblematic leader of 7
the million Iraqi Kurds, pledged a referendum on independence, as the first
tankers with Kurdish crude had already sailed from the Turkish port of Ceyhan.
In the following weeks, the Jihadi militants of the Islamic State, a Sunni
organization aiming at establishing a "chalifate" in Syria and Iraq,
marched to the gates of Erbil, the Kurdish capital in Northern Iraq. US and
Baghdad rushed to help the "peshmerga" forces from facing a
humiliating defeat. The dream of Kurdish independence froze and so did oil
exploitation efforts in their region. But, sooner or later, the geopolitical
map of Iraq and the Middle East will change...
In mid-August, as the Kurdish forces in northern Iraq
- the so-called "peshmerga" - battled the Jihadi militants of the
Islamic State, just a few kilometers from their capital Erbil, the question
about the future of the oilfields in their territories was "frozen'. But
it remained untouched, ready to emerge as soon as the battles are over and the
status of the area is cleared - at least for some time.
According to existing estimates, the region has
reserves of about 45 billion barrels of crude oil and as much as 6 trillion
cubic meters of natural gas. These numbers represent 32% and 5.5% of the total
Iraqi reserves respectively. And it is no secret that oil (and gas) wealth is
seen as the biggest asset of the Kurds in their efforts to establish their own
independent state, transforming the geopolitics of the Middle East. A prospect
that, at the same time, amounts to a nightmare for the rest of the peoples of
Iraq and the central government in Baghdad, but also for Turkey, Syria, Iran
and the United States.
All of them have every reason to fear that a Kurdish
state would not only accelerate the breakup of Iraq, but it would also multiply
and intensify the conflicts in the whole region, which is already in flames,
with the ongoing civil wars in Syria and Iraq, the new Israeli invasion in the
Gaza Strip, the deadly tensions in Lebanon and Jordan. But to be honest, they
also understand that - regardless of what happens now - it is impossible to
bury forever the will of 31 million Kurds (6-7 million of them live in northern
Iraq, while the rest are spread between Turkey, Iran and Syria) to create their
own state. And, of course, to exploit the oil wealth which belongs to them.
In this context, the latest efforts of the Kurdistan
Regional Government (KRG) to export big amounts of oil without the mediation of
the Baghdad authorities are of great importance. It is well known that Kurdish
crude is already flowing for months to the Mediterranean Turkish port of
Ceyhan, at a rate of around 120,000 barrels a day and, so far, the KRG has
pumped about 6.5 million barrels to Turkey, according to the energy ministry in
Ankara. More important is the fact that Kurdish leaders have the ambition to
quadruple this amount by December and raise it to one million barrels by the
end of 2015.
But on May 22, something happened which could
potentially be a game- changer. The United Leadership crude oil tanker,
carrying a $100 million cargo of one million barrels of Kurdish crude, set sail
from Ceyhan into the Mediterranean. After almost two weeks, it stuck off the
Moroccan coast, unable to deliver its cargo, as the US and the central Iraqi
government threatened with serious legal setbacks.
But KRG didn't stop there. In June, three more tankers
loaded with Kurdish oil sailed from Ceyhan. One of them, sailed from Ceyhan to
Malta to Cyprus and then crossed the Suez Canal towards Sri Lanka. Another one,
the United Kalavryta, reached the port of Galveston, in Texas, by the end of July,
trying to deliver the crude it was carrying to a US refinery. But the US
authorities seized the cargo, after a judge approved a request from Baghdad,
which threatened "to sue any company, refinery or trader that buys the
Iraqi crude that KRG is illegally offering".
The US government acted to comply with the court
ruling, but there is no doubt that its stance was also politically motivated -
and, at the same time, it is obvious that the Americans try to keep all ways
open. "We have made people aware that whatever they buy entails certain
risks, and we have consistently told them about that', said Carlos Pascual,
head of the US State Department's Energy Bureau, referring to the incident with
United Kalavryta, to add immediately after that: "At some point, Baghdad
and Erbil have to come to an understanding of how the development and the
export of those resources can contribute to Iraq's overall development".
In other words, the following message was sent: if you don't reach an agreement
on Kurdistan's oil wealth, then the breakup of the country might be inevitable
and Washington might think to eventually support the Kurds in their efforts.
The stance of the Turkish government, which provides
KRG with the port of Ceyhan to export the Kurdish oil independently, was also
politically motivated. Ankara fears an independent Kurdish state but, at the
same time, keeps in mind that in case it is created, it would be better to keep
it under control and not to be viewed as an enemy by the 17 million Turkish
Kurds.
The choice of the Israeli government to silently reach
a deal with KRG and buy the cargo of another tanker that sailed from Ceyhan in
the beginning of June, is also clearly political. According to information
published in the Wall Street Journal on July 23, the United Emblem sailed from
Ceyhan to Malta on June 9 - the same day that the gunmen of the Islamic State
were storming the city of Mosul. A week later, anchored in international
waters, it transferred its cargo to another tanker, the SCF Altai,
"completing the first sale of Kurdish oil, according to people familiar
with the transaction", as the WSJ wrote, although no authorities confirmed
the buyer's identity.
The Altai then sailed east, to the opposite direction,
docking after some days in the Israeli port of Ashkelon, where the oil was
unloaded into a storage facility. After that, the Kurdish energy ministry
trumpeted the move as a diplomatic and political victory, "accomplished
despite almost three weeks of intimidation and baseless interferences from
Baghdad". Finally, as the WSJ suggests, "two days after the oil was
unloaded, S93 million appeared in the KRG's account at Turkiye Halk Bankasi AS,
the state- owned Turkish lender".
Undoubtedly, this transaction is of great
significance, but it cannot solve by itself the serious problems the Kurdish
authorities are facing, neither can it fill their (almost empty) bags with
fresh money. The gamble is still open and, among others, it costs KRG a lot, as
it is obliged to pay thousands of dollars on a daily basis, in the form of
insurance premiums for the other ships that remain at sea.
