Iraqi Kurdistan pressures Baghdad with Turkey oil pipeline push
Some 600 km away, Iraqi officials in Baghdad's heavily fortified oil ministry are threatening dire consequences if the pipeline is completed, but appear powerless to prevent the Kurds exporting oil without their consent.
Turkey's courtship of the Kurds has strained relations with Baghdad, which says the pipeline would set a precedent for other provinces to pursue independent oil policies, potentially leading to the break-up of Iraq.
"They tell us to finish it as soon as possible because they don't want the Iraqi government to do something... (but) it cannot do anything," said an engineer at the site in the northern Kurdish province of Duhok. "This is very important for Kurdistan because it will benefit the economy."
At an estimated cost of $200 million, the 281-kilometre (174-mile) pipeline will reduce the autonomous region's reliance on Baghdad.
For the Turks, it will open up a new energy corridor and allow them to scale back their dependence on Russia and Iran for oil and gas.
Neither side has been deterred by the United States, which has urged both the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Turkey to abandon the project.
Workmen now laying the final stretch of the pipeline are on track to finish in September, with initial flows of 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) expected.
"If Ankara gives the green light for KRG oil to flow through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, then all options are open for the central government, including severing ties with Turkey and taking this issue to the international community," an Iraqi government official close to the oil industry said.
Undeterred, the Kurds are already planning a second pipeline with a higher capacity of 500,000 bpd, a publication overseen by the KRG's department of foreign relations shows.
