An economist says Erdogan did not care about the issue of oil exports during his visit to Iraq, adding "Turkey is exploiting this situation and buying smuggled oil from the Kurdistan region at a price of $30 per barrel."

Nabil Marsoumi, an Iraqi university professor and economist, in an article, mentioned the lack of interest in the oil issue during Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Iraq, for six reasons.

According to the university professor, the reasons for Erdogan’s lack of interest in the oil issue are:

First, Kurdistan currently produces 295,000 barrels of oil per day, 65% of the average production before the International Court of Arbitration’s decision, and 220,000 barrels are smuggled to Turkey and Iran, and sold at a cheap price of about $30, and Turkey benefits greatly from them from the current situation.

Secondly, the oil smuggled from Kurdistan will not be delivered to the federal government, but rather the two ruling parties will handle it. The current situation is in the interest of the Kurdistan Regional Government, especially when Baghdad pays salaries, Baghdad does not receive any oil revenues.

Third, Baghdad is not listening to the resumption of Kurdistan oil exports through the Turkish port, especially since Iraq is completing the repair of the broken pipeline between Iraq and Turkey, which begins in Kirkuk and heads south to Baji in Salahuddin, Then, to the north and on the Turkish border, Kirkuk oil could be exported to Turkey, without using the Kurdistan pipeline.

Fourth, oil smuggled from the Kurdistan region is not part of Iraq’s share of production, despite it being considered a currency violation by secondary OPEC sources.

Fifth: Officially resuming Kurdistan’s oil exports means reducing Iraq’s share of production by 400 thousand barrels per day, which means reducing Iraq’s oil share to less than 3 million barrels per day, which will have a negative impact on Iraqi oil revenues and further raise oil reserves, raising the level of the budget deficit, which is a basic deficit.

Sixth, resuming Kurdistan oil export requires increasing cash allocations to the Kurdistan region by more than $2 billion annually to cover production costs and transit fees, which will once again increase the budget deficit.