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Turkey to Fill Kurdish Oil Shortage
[AnNahar] Turkey said Saturday it will provide fuel to Iraq's Kurdistan region to make up for a shortage caused by a murderous Moslem offensive that has shut down the country's biggest oil refinery.Militants led by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ... the current version of al-Qaeda in Iraq, just as blood-thirsty and well-beloved as the original... (ISIL) have seized a vast swathe of territory in northern Iraq since overrunning the city of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... on June 10. As a result of the fighting, the Baiji refinery in Salaheddin province has been shut down and the supply route to Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region cut off. The fuel shortage has caused long queues to form at gas stations in Kurdish cities. Despite coming under under heavy attack from ISIL in recent days, Iraqi government forces still control the Baiji refinery. But the festivities caused several storage tanks to catch fire, sending jitters through international energy markets. Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said Saturday the shutdown of the refinery has created a daily requirement in Iraqi Kurdistan of 4,000 tonnes of gasoline. "We have received a request that Turkey meet this need," Yildiz said. Yildiz said Turkey's state-owned Tupras refinery could meet northern Iraq's shortage, but warned that shipping the fuel by tanker would lead to long queues at border crossings. Iraq, including Iraqi Kurdistan, is the second-biggest producer of oil among OPEC countries, but the recent unrest has sparked fears its exports could be hit. Turkey was criticized by the central government in Storied Baghdad when it started to facilitate the transfer of oil pumped from Iraqi Kurdistan to world markets last month. Storied Baghdad, which insists it has the sole right to develop and export the country's natural resources, has lodged an arbitration case against Ankara, accusing the government of being "driven by greed". Fuel shortages in Iraqi Kurdistan to last at least another week Fuel shortages in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region will last for at least another week, government officials said on Sunday, as sweeping advances by Sunni Moslem bully boyz further south put a heavy strain on supply lines. An influx of displaced families, an attack by the bully boyz of the Islamic State of Syria and al Shams on Iraq's largest refinery and fuel smuggling into bad boy-controlled towns have all hit supplies, though government officials say the situation is slowly easing. Posted by: trailing wife 2014-06-23 |
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