Resumption of oil exports from Iraqi Kurdistan may take time
Oil pipelines in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Photo: Rudaw News
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) – The spokesperson for the Iraqi government, Basem Al-Awadi, said on Monday that oil exports from the Kurdistan region of Iraq to Turkey via a pipeline that has been closed for more than a year will take longer to resume.
In a statement to reporters in Baghdad, Al-Awadi explained that talks between oil companies operating in Iraqi Kurdistan and the Iraqi government are expected to take some time, particularly since Baghdad is attempting to establish a direct relationship in terms of production quantities, exports, and prices, according to Bloomberg News.
The shutdown of the pipeline that goes to the port of Ceyhan in Turkey took away around 500,000 barrels of oil per day from international markets.
Al-Awadi stated that Turkey is ready to receive Iraqi oil from oilfields in Iraqi Kurdistan, adding that there is no problem in the export process through the port of Ceyhan.
The Iraqi official clarified that the issue needs to be resolved between Kurdistan, foreign oil companies operating there, and the Ministry of Oil in Baghdad.
The Iraqi Minister of Oil, Hayan Abdul-Ghani, revealed earlier this month 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.
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 illustrated.
Turkey stopped receiving oil flows from the Kurdistan region of Iraq on March 25, 2023, following 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.