Baghdad, Erbil negotiate to resume northern oil exports
Ceyhan petroleum operations field. Photo: BOTAS
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) – The Iraqi Minister of Oil, Hayan Abdul-Ghani, recently revealed that Baghdad and Erbil are in negotiations over the resumption of oil exports from northern Iraq.
“We are going to resume oil exports from Iraqi Kurdistan’s oilfields,” Abdul-Ghani told Kurdistan24 News.
“Recently, a deal was struck by the Ministry of Electricity and a company operating in the gas sector in the Kurdistan region of Iraq,” Abdul-Ghani added.
The Iraqi Oil Minister elaborated that the agreement aims to facilitate the transportation of 100 million cubic feet of natural gas.
Abdul-Ghani explained that the federal government in Baghdad requested the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to hand over oil produced in northern Iraq to the State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO) to be able to resume northern oil exports through Turkey, according to Rudaw News.
“We communicated with the KRG to hand over northern oil production to SOMO to be exported to the Turkish port of Ceyhan via the pipeline connecting Iraq and Turkey,” the Iraqi Oil Minister clarified.
Turkey stopped Iraq’s exports of 450,000 barrels per day through the oil pipeline that extends from the Kurdistan region of Iraq to the Turkish port of Ceyhan on March 25, 2023.
Turkey’s decision to suspend oil exports followed an arbitration decision issued by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Paris.
The decision obliged Turkey to pay Baghdad $1.5 billion in compensation for damages caused by the KRG’s export of oil without permission from the federal government in Baghdad between 2014 and 2018.
The KRG began exporting crude oil independently in 2013, a step Baghdad considered illegal.