Iraqi government makes false statements about oil export resumption, says APIKUR spox

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) – Myles B. Caggins III, the spokesperson for the Association of Petroleum Industry of Kurdistan (APIKUR), on Sunday told Kurdistan24 that “the central government of Iraq is playing games and they are making false statements in the media about the status of the resumption of exports of oil.”

“Last week in Washington, D.C. I met with Prime Minister Masrour Barzani and he announced that there have been 11 billion US dollars lost since the pipeline has been closed,” the spokesperson said.

He also revealed that the oil companies from APIKUR are ready to resume “full production and exports.”

"Iran is now exporting two million barrels of oil per day... The Kurdistan region was exporting 450,000 barrels per day through the Iraq-Turkey pipeline. That oil would go on global markets. Now Iran is filling that space with 2 million barrels per day and Iran oil is sanctioned and they're selling oil to China and North Korea and we need to have unsanctioned good oil from Kurdistan region going into the world markets,” he added while stressing, “Iraq and the central government should also want to have strong energy production in Kurdistan region because all of Iraq benefits when Kurdistan region is strong.”

Meanwhile, the APIKUR spokesperson underlined that if Iraqi Mohammed Shia' Al Sudani visits Washington, D.C. he needs to have “a deal with Erbil for two things one there needs to be a budget deal… the second thing is there needs to be an agreement between Baghdad or Erbil and international oil companies for the full production and export of oil.”