Subscribe 

For IOCs seeking cash flow, KRG local market falls short

With Kurdistan's export pipeline tangled in politics, beleaguered oil producers hoped they could make ends meet with domestic sales – but demand has been uneven at best.
A topping plant in Iraq's Kurdistan region. (PATRICK OSGOOD/Iraq Oil Report)

GWER - Along a bumpy dirt track to the west of Erbil, near the town of Gwer, tanker trucks trundle to a tiny, makeshift oil refinery – one of the roughly 150 "topping plants" that now underpin the hopes of foreign oil companies looking to monetize their investments in Kurdistan.

The centerpiece is a steel boiler corroded with rust along its welding seams. From one side, a maze of cooling pipes zigzags through a pit of dirty water. A rudimentary distiller separates fuels into six, three-meter-high plastic storage tanks.

This content is for registered users. Please login to continue.
If you are not a registered user, you may purchase a subscription.