Iraq oil flows to Turkey despite threats, attacks

By Simon Webb

DUBAI (Reuters) - Oil keeps flowing from Iraq to Turkey through a pipeline skirting Iraq's Kurdish region despite threats to infrastructure from Kurdish rebels and insurgent sabotage attacks further south, an oil shipper said on Thursday.

Iraq was pumping around 400,000 barrels per day of Kirkuk crude to Turkey on Thursday for the seventh consecutive day, the shipper said.

"The flow is about 18,000 barrels per hour," he said. "They are having some success at keeping it going.

Concerns that the flow might be halted due to clashes between Turkish troops and Kurdish rebels helped take oil futures to a record of over $90 a barrel last week.

A pro-rebel news agency quoted one of the leaders of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) last week as saying the guerrillas could strike oil pipelines if Turkish troops attacked them.

"We have no specific policy on pipelines but we are now waging a defensive war... Since pipelines that cross Kurdistan provide the economic resources for the Turkish army's aggression, it is possible the guerrillas target them," the Firat news agency quoted PKK commander Murat Karayilan saying.

Turkey has mounted a series of sorties by warplanes and ground troops since Sunday into Iraq territory after rebels killed 12 Turkish soldiers at the weekend.

Turkey has also beefed up security on another oil pipeline through its territory from the Caspian after threats from the rebels.

The northern pipeline from Iraq's Kirkuk field to Turkey's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan has repeatedly fallen victim to the wider insurgency further south in Iraq.

Sabotage attacks there have rendered the export route mostly inoperable since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. Bombers blew up a section of pipeline carrying crude to Iraq's Baiji refinery last week, but exports were not affected.

Sporadic flows over the past two months have allowed Baghdad to sell about 17 million barrels of oil through the pipeline to world markets.

Stocks of Kirkuk oil in storage at Ceyhan stood at 4.95 million barrels on Thursday, the shipper said.

Iraq has moved to market about 7.5 million barrels of crude from Ceyhan storage through ships and another pipeline in Turkey so far in October, the shipper said. A vessel was booked to load another million barrels on October 27, he added.

The OPEC member is in the process of selling another 6 million barrels.

The Iraq-Turkey pipeline is Iraq's secondary export route. The country relies on its main terminal in the south at Basra for exports of about 1.5 million barrels per day.