Barclays warns of upside oil price risk from protracted Kurdish supply halt

BENGALURU: Barclays on Tuesday warned that a disruption in oil exports by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) through the year-end would imply a $3 upside to their $92 per barrel 2023 Brent crude price forecast and might lead to some output loss.

Brent crude futures gained 27 cents to $78.39 a barrel by 1458 GMT, while US WTI crude futures were up 28 cents at $73.09, rising on the back of supply disruption risks from Iraqi Kurdistan and hopes that turmoil in banking is being contained.

Iraq was forced to halt around 450,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude exports, or half a percent of global oil supply, from the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region on Saturday through an export pipeline that runs from its northern Kirkuk oil fields to the Turkish port of Ceyhan.

It is unclear how long the disruption might last and a protracted disruption might lead to some output loss, Amarpreet Singh, an energy analyst at Barclays, wrote a note.

“However, a sustained recovery in flows might be contingent on a resetting of oil revenue sharing terms between the federal government and KRG, which might be a complicated process,” Singh highlighted.