Erbil, Kurdistan Region, Iraq - The KRG Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) gives public notice of the commencement of the sale of its first shipment of crude oil exported via Kurdistan Region’s new pipeline through Turkey to the Port of Ceyhan.
MNR anticipates the sale of the first parcel of two million barrels of exported crude oil to occur at the end of January 2014. Thereafter, monthly parcels will increase to 4 million barrels by the end of February and 6 million by the end of March, then steadily stepping up to 10-12 million barrels for the month of December 2014.
At the beginning of this month, some initial quantities of crude oil produced from the Tawke field began flowing through Kurdistan’s new pipeline system to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, and crude oil from Taq-Taq and other producing fields will soon be added to the export system, resulting in a blended medium crude oil quality of 30 to 32 Degrees API.
Prospective buyers can lift the crude oil shipments in the port of Ceyhan under similar arrangements as those used for SOMO (the State Oil Marketing Organisation) for oil export from Kirkuk.
Details of each parcel will be published by MNR in due course. All tenders will be competitive and based on international pricing. In order to ensure full transparency of the sales and contracting process, independent observers will be invited to each tender, together with representatives of the oil companies that have produced the exported oil.
MNR also invites representatives of SOMO to join the process as observers.
At this stage, MNR is inviting reputable and financially capable companies to register with MNR their interest in participating in the January tender or any of the future tenders.
All applicants should in the first instance write to the Ministry of Natural Resources with information about their company profile, track record and financial status via email KOMO@mnr.krg.org.
All submissions should be addressed to:
KOMO - Kurdistan Oil Marketing Organization,
Ministry of Natural Resources,
Council of Ministers, Kurdistan Regional Government,
Erbil, Kurdistan Region, Iraq