Parliamentary Oil Committee reveals details of oil smuggling from the region to Iranian ports, 17 AUGUST

  Parliamentary Oil Committee reveals details of oil smuggling from the region to Iranian ports

The Parliamentary Oil and Gas Committee revealed, on Thursday, the details of oil smuggling from the Kurdistan Region to Iranian ports, explaining that this operation caused a crisis in the transfer of crude oil between Iraqi refineries.

The committee’s deputy chairman, Adnan al-Jaberi, said in a press interview, “We have seen a document issued by the State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) regarding the smuggling of oil from the Kurdistan Region to Iranian ports,” noting that “this document states that oil is smuggled from Erbil and Sulaymaniyah via tankers through the Bashmakh and Pirouz Khan crossings.”

Al-Jabri added, "The document revealed that the price of transporting one ton of crude oil to Iran is $135," noting that "this issue caused an internal crisis in the land transport of oil, considering that most of the tankers are private and have turned towards loading these smuggled materials, and there has been a defect in the transport of official oil, because SOMO pays $33 per official ton, while the cost of transporting smuggled oil reaches $135 per ton, and thus most of the tankers have turned to transporting smuggled oil."

Al-Jaberi continued, "This crisis has caused the accumulation of crude oil in a number of refineries, which has affected the quantity of petroleum derivatives in these refineries," noting that "the Parliamentary Oil and Gas Committee is following up on this issue with importance, and we will host general managers in this regard."   link