The United Leadership, a tanker containing about one million barrels of oil from Iraqi Kurdistan, has been stuck at sea for two months. The ship has been mostly anchored off the Moroccan coast, the victim of legal threats against potential buyers. It is mired in a battle between Kurdistan, intent on parlaying the sale of such oil into independence, and the US and Iraqi governments, which are just as determined to prevent that and keep Iraq whole. + But people with knowledge of the situation say the US has signaled that it may stop actively discouraging potential buyers. If these people are right—and the US warnings are tempered—the market could see a fresh supply of 500,000 barrels of oil a day of Iraqi Kurdish oil by the end of 2014 and double that volume a year later. + Kurdistan already operates under relative autonomy but such new oil would probably […]