Iraq vows to work with BP on controversial oil field

AFP

Iraq said Wednesday it would proceed with work alongside British energy giant BP on a controversial northern oilfield, in a move likely to spark anger in the country's Kurdish region.

The development of the Kirkuk oilfield, which lies amid a swathe of disputed territory in north Iraq, is at the heart of a row over land, oil revenues and the powers of the central government that has been raging for years between Baghdad and the autonomous Kurdistan region.

Iraqi Oil Minister Abdelkarim al-Luaybi, Kirkuk provincial Governor Najm al-Din Omar Karim and BP chief executive Bob Dudley visited the field after holding talks in the province's eponymous capital.

"The contract with the British company will be executed by treating the decline in oil production at Kirkuk oilfield, which has reached 230,000 barrels (per day), and the company will work on surveying the fields and sites of Kirkuk oilfield throughout the contract period," Luaybi told AFP.

Current output represents a significant drop off from the field's peak, and Iraqi officials hope to increase production to 500,000 barrels per day in three years.
 

Turkey, Iraqi Kurdistan clinch major energy pipeline deals

REUTERS        Hümeyra PAMUK & Orhan COSKUN

Iraqi Kurdistan has finalized a comprehensive package of deals with Turkey to build multi-billion dollar oil and gas pipelines to ship the autonomous region's rich hydrocarbon reserves to world markets, sources involved in talks said on Wednesday.

The deals, which could have important geo-political consequences for the Middle East, could see Kurdistan export some 2 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil to world markets and at least 10 billion cubic meters per year of gas to Turkey.

Such a relationship would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, when Ankara enjoyed strong ties with Iraq's central Baghdad government and was deep in a decades-long fight with Kurdish militants on its own soil.

But Turkey imports almost all of its energy needs and growing demand means it faces a ballooning deficit, making the resources over its southeastern border hard to ignore.

During a visit to Istanbul last week by Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) prime minister Nechirvan Barzani, both sides agreed on the fundamentals of the deals and mapped out technical details for a second oil pipeline and a gas route from Iraq's north to Turkey, sources involved in the talks said.

Chinese firm wins Turkey missile defence system tender

REUTERS

NATO member Turkey has chosen a Chinese defence firm that has been sanctioned by Washington to co-produce a $4 billion long-range air and missile defence system, rejecting rival bids from Russian, U.S. and European firms.
nato
The Turkish defence minister announced the decision to award the contract to China Precision Machinery Import and Export Corp (CPMIEC) in a statement on Thursday.

In February, the United States announced sanctions on CPMIEC for violations of the Iran, North Korea and Syria Nonproliferation Act.

It did not say precisely what CPMIEC had done, but Washington has penalised the company before. In 2003, Washington said it was extending sanctions on the firm for arms sales to Iran. It was unclear when those measures were first imposed.

Officials at state-run CPMIEC, the marketing arm of China's missile manufacturing industry, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Turkey, which has the second-largest deployable military force in the NATO alliance, has no long-range missile defence system of its own, but NATO has deployed the U.S.-built Patriot air and missile defence system there since 2012.

The winning Chinese FD-2000 system beat the Patriot, the Russian S-400 and the French-Italian Eurosam Samp-T.

Raytheon Co, which builds the Patriot missile system, said it had been informed about the Turkish decision and hoped to get a briefing soon. It said there were 200 Patriot units deployed in 12 countries, including Turkey.

"NATO has long supported the system, deploying Patriots in five aligned countries and, in 2012, providing a requested Patriot deployment to Turkey. Given this strong performance, we hope to have an opportunity to debrief and learn more about this decision," Raytheon spokesman Mike Doble said.

Turkey's pipe dreams

Arabian Business       Lionel Mok

Turkey has continued to make the headlines in the Middle East’s oil and gas industry over the last several months due to a number of factors which include the growing divide between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Federal Government of Iraq (FGI); and the recent signing of the Trans-Adriatic Pipeiline (TAP) and Trans-Anatolian Pipelines (TANAP).

Despite its unremarkable national oil production industry that produces, on average, 50,000 barrels per day (bpd) from reserves that total approximately 270 million barrels of oil, the country has made itself critical to the world’s energy market, while also managing to satisfy growing domestic consumption of over 700,000 bpd.

Turkey owes its gravitational pull in the energy market to its physical geography. As the only landmass standing between the Middle East and Europe, and also the Black and Mediterranean Seas, Turkey is well positioned to become an energy hub and a transit point.

The country is in proximity to 71.8% of the world’s proven gas reserves and 72.7% of the world’s proven oil reserves. It neighbors Iran, Iraq the recently discovered Eastern Mediterranean reserves near Lebanon; and it is less than 250 kilometers away from the Caspian Sea, home of the world’s largest oil discovery in the last thirty years.

By 2004, the Turkish straits of the Bosphorus and the Dardanalles, had the capacity to transit 3.4 million barrels of oil to European markets every day. At the same time, a terminal on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast at Ceyhan, facilitates oil exports from northern Iraq via a pipeline from Kirkuk and from Azerbaijan through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. The Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline is Turkey’s largest, with a capacity of 1.65 million bpd.

The planned TANAP will include a natural gas pipeline system running from the Georgia-Turkey border to the Turkey-Greece border, while the TAP, will transport the same natural gas from Greece via Albania and the Adriatic Sea to Italy and further to markets throughout Western Europe.

Turkey's Sat-Launcher Plans Raise Concerns

Defense News     Burak Bekdil 

Turkey has approved construction of its first satellite launching center to cater for the country’s mushrooming satellite programs.

But Ankara’s western allies worry that the Turks intend to use their own launching pad to fire the long-range missiles they hope to build in the medium- to long-run.

Turkey’s procurement agency, the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM), in early July signed a contract with the country’s national missile manufacturer, Roketsan, to build the Turkish Satellite Launching System (UFS) for pre-conceptual design work.

Under the contract, Roketsan will design the UFS to be capable of launching, initially, satellites into low earth orbit (500 to 700 kilometers) through a launching center the company will build and the Turkish Air Force will operate.

“We intend to end Turkey’s foreign dependency on launching military and [civilian] communications satellites,” one Roketsan official said. “We also think Turkey may launch other nations’ satellites with its own system in the longer-run.”

An SSM official familiar with the program said one reason for the UFS project was that Turkish planners are aiming toward a compact space program, including a national launcher. “The government and military planners think that any space road map without an indigenous launcher would be incomplete,” he said.
But diplomats and analysts think that the Turks may have other reasons for their desire to have their own satellite launcher.

Turkey to begin negotiations on gas supplies from Turkmenistan

Trend

A framework agreement on cooperation for the supply of natural gas from Turkmenistan to Turkey can be called an illustrative result of the talks between the presidents of Turkmenistan and Turkey, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov and Abdullah Gul, who is on a state visit to Ashgabat.

Ankara periodically expresses its interest in the delivery of Caspian energy to Europe through Turkey, and the issue has been on the agenda since the mid nineties.

It is necessary to lay a 300-km pipeline under the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan for the delivery of Turkmen resources to Europe. From there, the fuel reaches Turkey, which shares borders with Europe. The Trans-Caspian project could become a part of several large-scale projects such as Nabucco, AGRI and TANAP in which Ankara takes an active part.

The Trans-Caspian project at this stage is considered by experts as the most optimal way to deliver Turkmen gas to Europe.

Official Ashgabat believes that the consent of the parties, territories of which are covered by the project (Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan), is sufficient for laying the pipe under the Caspian Sea.

Baku has expressed readiness to provide its territory, transit opportunities and infrastructure for its implementation, as reported by the representatives of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR).

Source:  http://en.trend.az/capital/energy/2156037.html

Turkish Parliament opens way to oil market liberalization

Hurriyet Daily News

A petroleum market draft code has passed into law in General Assembly of the Parliament despite the opposition’s outcry over the measures which diminishes the role of state-owned TPAO in the market.

The Turkish Parliament’s General Assembly has approved a draft code on the petroleum market that comprises regulations to boost the dynamism in the sector by easing the circumstances for private actors and to end rentiers in the sector.

The new law, which is designed to regulate oil exploration and production operations in compliance with the country’s energy policies has passed into law late on May 29.

The government says the new regulations would liberalize the sector significantly.

But opposing groups say that it would leave the state-run Turkish Petroleum Company (TPAO) in a weaker position.

During the discussion of the draft in Parliament, one of the main opposition Republican People’s Party deputies attacked the draft, blaming the government for “not thinking to make exploration and production more efficient and rather seeking ways to please foreign capital.”

Kurdish crude sales to rise as exports reach second Turkish port

Reuters          Julia Payne and Peg Mackey


* Taq Taq crude exports to reach about 60,000 bpd by end June
* Kurdistan to start deliveries to second terminal in Turkey
* Crude in steady stream to Northern Europe


Iraqi Kurdistan's crude oil sales to world markets, deemed illegal by Baghdad, are set to rise by nearly 50 percent next month as trucks start deliveries to a second export terminal in Turkey, industry sources in the region said on Wednesday.

Crude exports from the Taq Taq oilfield in the autonomous northern region to Turkey's Mersin port started at a trickle in early January and have risen to just over 40,000 barrels per day (bpd).

They are expected to hit around 60,000 bpd by the end of June as trucks unload at the neighbouring Dortyol terminal in southern Turkey.

Oil lies at the heart of a feud between the central government and Kurdistan. Baghdad says it alone has the right to control exports and sign deals, while the Kurds say their right to do so is enshrined in Iraq's federal constitution.

In retaliation, Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organisation (SOMO) sent letters warning customers not to touch any oil that had not been marketed by SOMO and the ministry intends to sue producers, namely Anglo-Turkish firm Genel Energy.

Turkey eyes oil, gas deals with Iraqi Kurdistan

Reuters


Turkey is looking to sign commercial contracts this year with Russian and U.S. companies operating in northern Iraq for joint oil and gas exploration, Turkey's Energy Minister Taner Yildiz told Reuters.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan last week discussed U.S. concerns about Turkey's deepening energy ties with Iraqi Kurdistan during meetings in Washington with President Barack Obama.


Minutes before his departure for Washington, Erdogan announced that a Turkish company already had a contract in place with U.S. energy company Exxon Mobil but declined to provide details until after the visit.
Yildiz, who was in Erdogan's delegation, said the discussions with Obama and his team were very positive and fruitful.

"We are likely to be involved with Russian and American companies in northern Iraq for different projects like oil and gas exploration. And this year, state-owned and private companies could sign commercial contracts with northern Iraq," he said in an interview.

He declined to name companies.

Exxon was the first to sign up for exploration deals with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Others including Chevron, Total and Russia's Gazprom Neft have followed.

Turkey agrees energy deal with Kurdish north Iraq

Daniel Dombey        Financial Times

Turkey has defied both Washington and Baghdad by agreeing an energy deal with the north of Iraq that the US warns could further fracture the Middle Eastern state, but which Ankara sees as central to its own future.

Several Turkish officials confirm Ankara struck a secretive framework agreement earlier this year with the autonomous Kurdish Regional Government of Northern Iraq for Turkish state energy companies to take stakes in the region’s oil and gasfields. They add the deal is still so sensitive that it is unlikely to be acknowledged publicly until after a visit by prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Washington this week, a trip that takes place against a backdrop of increased tension in Iraq itself.

The agreement, together with Turkey’s political opening towards its own Kurdish population, is set to bolster Ankara’s influence in the energy-rich north of Iraq and could help it generate sufficient energy supplies to meet its ambitious growth targets. Mr Erdogan has previously described the deal as a “win win”.

Kurdish officials welcome closer relations. “Let’s be honest: Turkey is our door to the world,” said one, pointing to the KRG’s problematic ties with other neighbours. “Look at the [strained] situation with Iran, Syria, the rest of Iraq . . . Turkey is a big power in the region and, if it follows good policies like at the moment, why not be an ally?”

But the central Iraqi government in Baghdad says that without its permission the energy agreement violates the Iraqi constitution. A direct pipeline link to Turkey under the deal would give the KRG, which already has its own military force, much greater economic independence than before. At present, the only export pipelines available to the region are federally controlled and the KRG has halted exports through them because of a budget dispute with Baghdad.

Israel wants to carry Israeli gas to Turkey

Sevil Küçükkoşum         Hurriyet Daily News

Israel sees ‘Med-Streams’ in service of regional diplomacy

Building a pipeline that will carry Israeli gas to Turkey would enhance political normalization between two countries, Israeli envoy says, contrary to Turkish efforts to separate two processes

Transferring Israeli gas through Turkey to the international market is profitable for both Turkey and Israel and cooperation in the energy field could pave the way for resolving regional problems, a senior diplomat from the Jewish state said, as he apparently referred to probable normalization of bilateral relations between Turkey and Israel with the help of such cooperation at a bilateral level.

“We should start thinking at least about a set of Med-Streams, a set of pipelines and LNG that will enable us to exploit not only oil and gas, but also to create another political environment,” Ambassador Michael Lotem, special envoy for energy of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said yesterday, referring to prospects of building of a pipeline from Israel to Turkey.

“Can we use energy; can we use gas, beyond the commercial value of it, in the service of politics, in the service of diplomacy?” Lotem asked in a speech delivered at the second and last day of the 12th Turkish International Oil & Gas Conference (TUROGE).

Turkey, Iraq warm to new pipeline as supply surges

Today's Zaman

Turkey reiterated its willingness to build a new pipeline in cooperation with energy-rich Iraq for a second time in less than a week after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki made statements aimed at breaking the ice with Ankara following months of hostile rhetoric.

 

The statements come at a time of new oil discoveries in Iraq with the existing pipeline infrastructure starting to fall short of meeting overseas demand, undermining the war-torn country's potential to boost energy exports incomes. Ankara and Baghdad have been at odds over a disagreement between the two to export northern Iraq's oil via Turkish markets. The latest developments, however, enhanced the chance for reconciliation between the two with the central government in Baghdad appearing to be less skeptical about Ankara's engagement with the autonomous Kurdistan region -- or Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) -- to the north. Resource-hungry Turkey has heavily courted Iraqi Kurds regardless of the strife with Baghdad and continues doing so.

In an op-ed article published in Washington Post to mark the 10th year of US invasion in Iraq, Maliki said Baghdad “is committed to good relations with all our neighbors … offering the hand of friendship to Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.” Turkish energy minister Taner Yıldız said in Ankara on Wednesday that the government “is ready to cooperate in building a new pipeline that could serve as an alternative to an existing Baghdad-controlled Kirkuk-Yumurtalık pipeline to Turkey.” Exports via that channel dried up in December -- from a peak of around 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) -- due to a row with Baghdad over payments. Last month Yıldız said the Baghdad government has offered to build a pipeline from the Iraqi oil site of Basra to Ceyhan.

$10-12 bn to be invested in TANAP project

Nearly $10-12 bn is expected to invest in TANAP project.

 

Nearly $10-12 bn is expected to invest in TANAP project, SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev said at the meeting with Energy Minister of Turkey Taner Yildiz, APA-Economics reports.

To him, at present time, works are conducted in direction of legal and financial issues of the project: ‘Physical works on TANAP project is expected to start in Q2, 2014’.

The Turkey - Russia - Iran Nexus: Eurasian Power Dynamics

Stephen J. Flanagan      The Washington Quarterly

Complex and often contradictory interactions among Turkey, Russia, and Iran are shaping regional dynamics in the Middle East, Caucasus, and Central Asia. The nexus of the three pairs of relations are influencing each country’s dealings with the other two, as well as with the United States, and are whipsawed by events on the ground that continue to surprise leaders of these three historic rivals. Starkly differing policies toward the Syrian civil war and the Arab Awakening have strained Ankara’s previously cooperative relations with Moscow and Tehran.

Understanding these dynamics is essential to avoiding a wider war in the Middle East, renewed conflict in the Caucasus, and instability in Central Asia following the withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan. Moreover, with the proxy war in Syria deepening and the prospect of Israeli military strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities, the Middle East is reaching a tipping point unless the United States and the international community are able to work with these three powers to broker a political transition in Syria and a resolution of the Iranian nuclear crisis, which would otherwise have devastating consequences for regional stability and the global economy.

For Download full article please click here 


Source: The Washington Quarterly

Turkey seeks deeper energy relationship with Iraq and KRG

Orhan Coşkun     Reuters


Turkey would play an active role in any arrangement in Iraq under which crude oil export revenues are shared between the central government and the northern Iraqi Kurdistan region, Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said on Thursday.

Yildiz told Reuters in an interview Turkey stood ready to support an arrangement under which 83 percent of oil export revenue went to Baghdad and the remaining 17 percent went to the government of the autonomous Kurdistan region.

"There is nothing on this issue that would unsettle the Iraqi central government," Yildiz said.
"Turkey would play an active role in giving the 17 percent to northern Iraq and 83 percent to the Iraqi central government."

Oil lies at the heart of a long-running feud between the central government and the autonomous Kurdistan region. Baghdad says it alone has the authority to control exports and sign contracts, while the Kurds say their right to do so is enshrined in Iraq's federal constitution.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) started on the path towards economic independence early this year by exporting small volumes of crude oil by truck to Turkey.

Turkey is economic winner of Iraq war

Daniel Dombey     Financial Times

ISTANBUL — The Americans won the war, the Iranians won the peace and the Turks won the contracts.

Turkey, which blocked the deployment of U.S. troops through its territory during the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, is emerging 10 years on as one of the prime beneficiaries of the battle for the Iraqi market.

Although Turkey’s relations with Baghdad are increasingly bitter, its exports to Iraq have in the past decade soared by more than 25 percent a year, reaching $10.8 billion in 2012, making Iraq Ankara’s second-most valuable export market after Germany.

Ozgur Altug, an economist at BGC Partners in Istanbul, predicts that as Iraq grows richer because of its oil reserves, demand for Turkish goods will keep climbing — by more than $2 billion a year. Turkish contractors have also been doing rich business, working on about $3.5 billion of construction projects last year, according to businessmen and officials.

One company, Calik Energy, boasts that it is building the two biggest projects in the Iraqi power sector, two gas turbine plants in the Mosul and Karbala regions, earning more than $800 million from the Iraqi government in the process.

While Iran is seen as the most influential outside power in Iraq today, on Baghdad’s streets Turkey’s presence is more visible than that of any other country, with everything from malls to furniture stores to pavement bricks bearing a Turkish trademark.

Iraqi Kurdistan offers improving business environment; tensions with Baghdad remain – country risk report

Maplecroft    Country Risk Report for Iraq

Maplecroft’s Country Risk Report for Iraq focuses on the primary risks to oil and gas companies operating in Iraqi Kurdistan. The report includes in-depth analysis of current political dynamics, including tensions between Erbil and Baghdad, security concerns, legal and regulatory challenges, the human rights and labour rights situation and environmental issues.

Iraq is facing a year of political uncertainty and potential instability. In Iraqi Kurdistan, the relationship between the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) is souring. Meanwhile, an increasingly hostile and intractable confrontation between Erbil and Baghdad over contested territory and Kurdish issuance of oil contracts remains a source of concern for investors. Tensions peaked in November 2012 when both the KRG and federal authorities sent thousands of troops to a disputed border in the Diyala governorate. A de-escalation of the military stand-off has yielded progress but political statements regarding the incident remain vitriolic.

Oil and gas companies have good reason to be interested in Iraqi Kurdistan. Long-term indications suggest that crude production from the north of the country will constitute a rapidly growing share of overall national output, rising from 6.6% in 2012 to 33% by 2020. However, considerable challenges remain, not least the inability of Erbil and Baghdad to agree on the terms of exploration contracts.

Turkish-Greek economic ties expand

Capital.gr

The Turkish market has become a major export destination for crisis-stricken Greece, as Greek companies find it harder to sell in the domestic market due to worsening financial conditions of the average Greek household.

Greek exports to Turkey surged to $3.5 billion (2.6 billion euros) in 2012 from $1.1 billion in 2009, according to Turkstat data. During this period, the average year-on-year increase of Greek exports hovered around 50 percent, while Turkish exports remained flat at around $1.5 billion each year.

This eye-catching shift in trade relations left Turkey as a net importer from Greece, whereas in 2007, before the Greek debt crisis, Turkey had a positive trade balance with Greece of $1.7 billion.

Archontis Pantsios, a professor of economics at The American College of Thessaloniki, said that since the onset of the crisis in Greece, Turkey has become a more suitable market for Greek companies.

"They are looking to lower the costs and exporting to Turkey is an effective option for Greek companies," Pantsios told SETimes.

Turkey΄s vibrant domestic demand and large market is seen as another reason for the increase in Greek exports to Turkey.

Azerbaijan to purchase Turkish T-129 ATAK helicopters, total cost $3 billion

Turkey's native Attack Helicopter T-129 ATAK on training flight

Azerbaijan will purchase 60 T-129 ATAK helicopters manufactured by Turkey, the Sabah newspaper reported on Monday.

According to the report, Azerbaijan ordered T-129 ATAK helicopters from the Turkish aerospace company Türk Havacılık ve Uzay Sanayii (TAI), and mass production will begin in this year.

Purchase of 60 helicopters, specially manufactured for Azerbaijan, will cost $3 billion.

Besides Azerbaijan, UAE, Malaysia, Pakistan and Jordan showed an interest in buying helicopters.

Turkish-made ATAK combat helicopters are part of the state program aimed at ensuring the Turkish army with arms, equipment and outfit of own production. Currently, Turkey has achieved self-sufficiency in this sector at 50 percent.

ATAK helicopters can reach speeds of up to 300 kilometers per hour, to fly in any weather conditions and poor visibility.

Turkey - France struggle on Africa: Turkey Reinforces 'Hands Off' Policy on Mali

Dorian JONES     VOA NEWS

ISTANBUL — The Turkish foreign ministry has criticized the ongoing French operation in Mali. The public criticism comes as Turkey is increasingly seeing West Africa as a region of interest economically and diplomatically.

Ankara has been increasing voicing concerns regarding the intervention by French forces against an Islamic insurgency in Mali.

Northern Mali fell under rebel control after a March military coup in Bamako triggered a Tuareg-led rebel offensive that seized the north and split the West African nation in two.

Turkish foreign Ministry spokesman Selcuk Unal questions the timing and whether it offers a solution to the situation.

"We wish to see the situation in Mali to change to a better perspective in the framework of the political will of its people, such as a democratic elections and a free parliament. In that sense we are also not favorable to unilateral action before trying other political methods or other avenues," said Unal.

The Turkish foreign ministry points out the United Nations Security Council resolution on Mali sanctioned only an African led intervention. Ankara's ambivalence over France's military intervention is part of a growing rivalry between Paris and Ankara over West Africa, according to Semih Idiz, a diplomatic columnist for the Turkish daily Taraf.