Kurds lose fight to sell crude oil in U.S. after Iraq sues

Iraq’s self-ruled Kurds can’t sell Iraqi crude oil in the U.S. under a court decision that puts a fresh hurdle in the path of Kurdish efforts to achieve financial independence from the central government in Baghdad.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans dismissed an attempt by the Kurdistan Regional Government to overturn a judge’s earlier decision against its planned sale of oil to an unidentified buyer in the U.S. The KRG’s eventual sale of the disputed cargo in Israel made the appeal moot, the court said in a ruling.

The case began last year when Iraq’s central government sued to seize a tanker loaded with crude from the country’s Kurdish region that had sailed to the Gulf of Mexico and anchored 60 miles off the coast of Texas. The appeals court upheld an order by a judge in Houston requiring the KRG to notify him before trying in the future to sell any oil in the U.S.

“The KRG mooted this appeal through its voluntary decision to discharge the cargo in Israel,” the court said Monday in its 13-page ruling. “In so doing, the KRG severely weakened its argument.”