A crude oil tanker with oil from Kurdistan, heading toward the U.S. Gulf Coast, reversed its course after The U.S. State Department said that any buyer who purchases the oil could risk a legal suit from the Iraqi central government.

The statement of the U.S. State Department is likely to discourage potential buyers in the U.S. on purchasing the oil from Kurdistan.

According to ship-tracking data and market sources, the United Leadership oil tanker was loaded at the Turkish port of Ceyhan last week and was set course for the U.S. Gulf Coast.

The situation occurred due to the dispute between Iraqi Kurdistan and Baghdad over the sale of oil. Kurdish government last week decided to sale its own oil without interference from Baghdad. Officials of Baghdad were unhappy with the move.

The United Leadership oil tanker was carrying the first shipment of oil after the Kurdish government decided to sale the region’s oil directly to buyers through the newly built pipeline into Turkey. AIS Live Ship Tracking showed that the United Leadership tanker reversed the course south of Portugal. Therefore, for the moment, the oil tanker appears to be heading nowhere.

The U.S. State Department said in its statement that it does not support any oil sales bypassing Baghdad. It also said that Iraqi central government might fill a legal suit against the buyers. However, the U.S. in the past has imported small quantities of oil from Kurdistan, though not from the newly built pipeline.

The Kurdish government in a response said that the shipment was going to Europe, not the U.S. A spokesman for the Kurdistan Alliance to the central government confirmed that Germany and Italy had brought one million barrels of oil from Kurdistan through an auction.

Right after the direct oil sell by Kurdish government, Iraq’s central government announced that it filed an arbitration case against Turkey with the International Chamber of Commerce for allowing the export from taking place. Start of the direct oil sale by Kurdish government means much more noteworthy revenues for the region. The move might eventually see claims of a separate region.

Earlier, governments of Iraq and Kurdistan held numerous discussions over the oil sales but could not come to any agreement. The Kurdish Prime Minister, Nechirvan Barzani, said in a parliament speech recently that his government started the oil sale to show officials sitting in Bagdad that they have the capacity to do so.







