ANKARA, Turkey, June 6 (UPI) -- A second tanker of crude oil from the Kurdish north of Iraq has left the Turkish sea port at Ceyhan, a port official from Turkey said Friday.
A vessel loaded with more than 1 million barrels of oil from the semiautonomous Kurdish north of Iraq left the Turkish port of Ceyhan last month. The Kurdistan Regional Government said it's operating according to Iraqi law, though Baghdad says the exports are illegal.
"The first tanker loaded with KRG oil was sold to the world market and more vessels will be loaded at Ceyhan," a senior official at the Turkish Ministry of Energy told Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah.
United Leadership, a crude oil tanker carrying the Kurdish oil, is docked off the coast of Morocco. Daily Sabah said it was unable to confirm reports that it's been sold already.
The central government in Baghdad filed a case at an international court of arbitration in Paris to challenge the export.
Port authorities said a second tanker loaded with about 1 million barrels of oil has already left Ceyhan for an undetermined location.
KRG and the central government in Baghdad are at odds over who controls what in the country's oil sector.
