Ankara officially informs Baghdad that oil pipeline ready to re-operate
Ceyhan petroleum operations field. Photo: BOTAS
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) – Ankara officially informed Baghdad that the Iraqi-Turkish oil pipeline linking the Kurdistan region of Iraq to the Turkish port of Ceyhan had become ready to re-operate.
The step allows northern Iraq to resume its exports of crude oil, estimated at 475,000 barrels per day, to global markets, according to the Iraqi Oil Report.
The Turkish pipeline operator BOTAS sent an official letter on October 2 to the State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO) informing the Iraqi side that the Iraqi-Turkish oil pipeline will be ready for the transportation, storage, and loading of crude oil starting on October 4, 2023.
The Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Alparslan Bayraktar, confirmed earlier in October that the oil pipeline is ready to operate and that Ankara is getting ready to start oil export operations through Ceyhan port on the Mediterranean.
Turkey had stopped oil flows through the pipeline in northern Iraq on March 25, after the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) ordered Ankara to pay Baghdad $1.5 billion in compensation for damages caused by the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) export of oil without permission from the federal government in Baghdad between 2014 and 2018.
Turkey began maintenance work on the pipeline, which, according to Turkish officials, passes through a seismically active area and was damaged by floods.
In a statement to NTV, Bayraktar explained that there are no obstacles now in terms of shipping oil produced in northern Iraq to global markets.
An Iraqi official in the oil sector revealed in early October that talks to resume oil exports from northern Iraq through the pipeline between Iraq and Turkey are still ongoing.