the biggest oil and gas operator in Kurdistan, said shipments of crude to Turkey through a new pipeline will start shortly, allowing the company to receive higher prices for its Iraqi production.


The Kurdistan Regional Government, or KRG, “expects sales via the pipeline to commence in the near future and ramp up over the remainder of the year,” London-based Genel said today in a statement. Commissioning of the link is under way and some crude has already flowed to the port of Ceyhan in neighboring Turkey.

Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward, the former head of BP Plc, has expanded Genel’s assets in the northern region of Iraq since taking over two years ago in the hope of starting exports. The KRG has signed deals with Turkey to ship oil and gas. Genel has risen 38 percent in London trading since the start of 2013.

The company expects to pump 60,000 barrels to 70,000 barrels a day this year, about 50 percent more than in 2013, assuming a ramp-up of exports in the second quarter. “The energy agreement between the KRG and Turkey and the completion of the Kurdistan independent pipeline infrastructure has paved the way for steadily rising oil-export volumes” from the Taq Taq and Tawke fields, it said in the statement.

“2014 production guidance may disappoint some,” said Brian Gallagher, an analyst atInvestec Securities Ltd. in London. It “reflects cautiousness in forecasting volumes from a piped export system that is not fully ramped up yet.”




Source: Bloomberg