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Aframax to load KRG crude this week

  • Spanish Market: Crude oil
  • 16/07/14

The Aframax ship Genmar Strength will load an 85,000t cargo of Kurdish crude oil later this week at the Turkish port of Ceyhan.

The ship is scheduled to arrive on 18 July. The charterer is Hungarian integrated oil company Mol.

Mol holds a 20pc stake in the Shaikan field in the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq, which is operated by London-listed Gulf Keystone Petroleum.

Shaikan is on track to produce 20,000 b/d, doubling to 40,000 b/d by the end of this year. To date, most Shaikan crude has been exported by truck to the Turkish port of Dortyol and sold on the international markets.

The Genmar Strength will be the first tanker to load crude from fields controlled by the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) for a month. Of four larger cargoes loaded to date, only one has been delivered - to an Israeli buyer.

Three Suezmax cargoes remain on the water. United Leadership, has now returned to offshore Mohammedia on Morocco's Atlantic coast, having sailed away from there yesterday. It has been there since early June, apart from a brief relocation to offshore Tangiers earlier this month.

The United Emblem, carrying its second cargo of KRG crude, is in the Arabian Sea, moving at 10.6kph and still showing 'east for orders' as the ship's destination, with arrival details unchanged at 1400 on 20 July.

The third tanker, carrying the fourth cargo of KRG crude loaded so far at Ceyhan, is still on course across the Atlantic Ocean, and showing destination 'Brazil for orders'. Estimated arrival time remains 1300 on 25 July.

The draft measurement of all three ships is unchanged.

The KRG and the federal government of Iraq remain locked in a dispute over the legality of the KRG's exports. Baghdad has threatened legal action against companies lifting Kurdish crude not marketed through its marketing firm Somo. The KRG, for its part, said that it would consider taking legal action against the federal government if Baghdad does not cease trying to prevent loadings.

jcw/ts

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