DNO shuts oil output as Baghdad orders halt to exports via Turkey

Norwegian oil firm DNO said on Wednesday it had begun shutting down production at its fields in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq after Baghdad ordered a stop last week to exports via a pipeline to a Turkish port.

Iraq on Saturday halted crude exports from its northern region after the country won an arbitration case, which said that Turkey violated a joint agreement by allowing the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to export oil to the Ceyhan port.

After the ruling, Turkey stopped pumping Iraqi crude from the pipeline, putting production in the region at risk.

DNO at first began filling local storage tanks, but those only had capacity for a few days worth of output.

The company's Tawke and Peshkabir fields averaged combined production of 107,000 barrels of oil per day in 2022, representing a quarter of total Kurdish exports, DNO said.

"It is unfortunate it has come to this given the likely impact of a continuing supply disruption on oil prices and at a fragile time in global financial markets," DNO's Executive Chairman Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani said in a statement.

Prior to the shutdown the pipeline carried about 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Kurdish oil and another 70,000 bpd of Iraqi oil to global markets, DNO said.

(Reuters)