Kurdistan crude export deadlock persists

Two months after Parliament amended the federal budget law to create a new oil production payment framework for the Kurdistan region, the northern export pipeline to Turkey remains offline as the principal stakeholders have failed to reconcile stark differences on how to implement the legislation.

A unilateral step taken by the federal government last week appears to be pushing the parties further apart, while time is running out for the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Baghdad to agree on a costs assessment framework that will work for international oil companies (IOCs).