BREAKING NEWS: Tanker with Iraqi
Kurdish crude cleared to unload cargo off Texas
Posted on July 27, 2014 at 10:48pm
TOP NEWS
Sun, Jul 27 19:27 PM EDT
By Erwin Seba and Terry Wade
HOUSTON (Reuters) - A tanker carrying crude oil from
Iraqi Kurdistan was cleared by the U.S. Coast Guard to unload its cargo at sea
off Texas on Sunday as a State Department official signaled Washington would
not intervene to block delivery of the controversial crude.
Coast Guard officials went aboard the tanker United
Kalavrvta on Sunday and verified the ship and crew's ability to safely offload
the oil, a Coast Guard spokesman said.
The ship set sail from the Turkish port of Ceyhan in
June with a load of crude oil supplied by a new pipeline from the Kurdish
oilfields.
Trading sources in Texas, New York, London and Geneva
have been unable to identify the buyer of the United Kalavrvta's cargo. The oil
could go to any one of the many refineries located along the U.S. Gulf Coast.
The ship carries approximately 1 million barrels of
crude, which would fetch more than $100 million at international prices.
Sale of Kurdish crude oil to a U.S. refinery would
infuriate Baghdad, which sees such deals as smuggling, raising questions about
Washington's commitment to preventing oil sales from the autonomous region.
The U.S. government has expressed fears that
independent oil sales from Kurdistan could contribute to the breakup of Iraq as
the government in Baghdad struggles to contain the ultra-hardline Islamic
State, a group of Sunni Islamist insurgents who have captured vast areas of the
country.
But it also has grown frustrated with Iraqi Prime
Minister Nuri al-Maliki's handling of the crisis.
The tanker anchored on Saturday night in an area off
the port of Galeveston, Texas, where ships too large to transit the Houston
Ship Channel offload oil to smaller tankers for delivery to the U.S. mainland.
Throughout Saturday and Sunday, the Coast Guard was in
communication with the U.S. National Security Council, and departments of State
and Homeland Security, said Petty Officer Andy Kendrick.
To deliver the crude the tanker only had to show it
could do so in compliance with Coast Guard regulations, Kendrick said.
"We didn't have any extra stuff to impose on
them," he said.
Crude offloading could begin as soon as the ship
arranges a contract with a company that performs lightering, as the process is
called, he said. Lightering, depending the size of the cargo, can take several
hours and even days.
Attempts to contact the ship's owner and the vessel
itself were unsuccessful.
A State Department official, speaking on condition of
anonymity on Sunday because of the sensitivity of the issue, said officials
were well aware the ship's location and cargo.
"This is a private commercial matter," the
official said. "Our policy has not changed. Iraq's energy resources belong
to all of the Iraqi people. As in many cases involving legal disputes, the
United States informs the parties of the dispute and recommends they make their
own decision with advice of counsel."
Washington has pressured companies and governments not
to buy crude from the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), but it has stopped short
of banning purchases by U.S. firms.
The KRG has renewed its push for an independent state
amid the latest violence roiling Iraq. Its relationship with Baghdad has
deteriorated over what it sees as Maliki's role in stoking the crisis and the
long-running dispute over oil sales.
Baghdad has threatened to sue anyone that buys Kurdish
oil.
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