In June 2017, Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Russian energy behemoth Rosneft signed several cooperation, investment and production sharing agreements regarding hydrocarbon exploration, production, infrastructure, logistics and trading. Rosneft also obtained access to Kurdistan’s oil pipeline to Turkey with a capacity of 700,000 bbl/day, and is planning to extend this to over 1 million bbl/day, although no timeline has been given. Earlier in 2017, Rosneft’s Swiss-based trading arm Rosneft Trading S.A. agreed to buy crude oil from Iraqi Kurdistan until 2019. The crude is to be delivered to Rosneft’s refineries in Germany. Rosneft committed to paying KRG for oil supplies in advance. According to sources quoted by Bloomberg , the first advance payment was U.S. $1 billion. The deal meets the commercial interests of both sides. Rosneft expanded its global portfolio and secured crude supplies for its German, and potentially new Indian, refineries. In August 2017, Rosneft finalised the […]