Iraq’s oil minister said Friday that the country has started legal action against Turkey as part of the ongoing dispute over the semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region’s independent oil exports. “The Oil Ministry has taken the necessary procedures by asking the legal parties in Baghdad and Ankara to start the legal process to conduct a lawsuit against the Turkish government because it allows the [Kurdistan] region to pump oil through the export pipeline without the approval of the central government,” Abdul Karim Luaibi said Friday, according to a statement given to Platts by the Oil Ministry. Over the past year, the Kurdistan Regional Government has built a 300,000 b/d pipeline within its northern Iraq territory and connected it to the 40-inch-diameter leg of the Iraq-Turkey Pipeline. Under a series of oil and gas export agreements signed between Erbil and Ankara late November, crude exports have […]