KRG announces severe loss from Ceyhan pipeline attack

KRG spokesman Safin Dzayee informed NRT news channel that the region hasn’t resumed oil exports to Ceyhan due an attack on the pipeline, which occurred in Turkey.

“The KRG region has lost out on $14.260 million,” Dzayee said explaining that the region had been exporting between 610,000 to 620,000 barrels of oil per day, as quoted by NRT. 

The KRG’s Natural Resources Ministry tweeted on Feb. 22 that this loss was per day. 

Crude oil export from the region to Turkey’s Ceyhan Port has been interrupted since Feb. 16, following attacks on the export pipeline near the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa in Turkey, said the ministry in a written statement on Feb. 18. 

With the drop in global oil prices, the KRG is already struggling to pay the salaries of its military arm, the Peshmerga, and other security forces from its oil export revenue. 

“Such attacks directly damage the welfare of the people of Kurdistan region and harm the KRG’s ability to pay its Peshmerga and fund the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [ISIL],” said the statement. 

“These attacks only make the battle against terrorism harder,” it added.