Iraq finalizes procedures to resume oil export via Türkiye’s Ceyhan

BAGHDAD

The Iraqi Oil Ministry has announced that all procedures for resuming oil exports from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) through Türkiye’s Ceyhan Port have been completed.

In a written statement, the ministry confirmed that the necessary steps for restarting exports were finalized.

The ministry also called on KRG officials to transfer crude extracted from operational fields to Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) for export via the Iraq-Türkiye pipeline and Ceyhan Port in the Turkish southern province of Adana.

Iraqi Oil Minister Hayan Abdul-Ghani said on Feb. 17 that oil exports, halted on March 25, 2023, would resume within a week.

Iraq’s parliament earlier approved amendments to the budget law, setting the cost of extracting and transporting each barrel of oil from the KRG at $16.

The exports had been halted for nearly two years after the International Chamber of Commerce sided with Iraq in an arbitration case as a long-standing dispute over the independent export of oil by the Kurdish regional government.

Officials in Baghdad and Irbil, the seat of the Kurdish regional government, have long been at odds over sharing of oil revenues. In 2014, the Kurdish region decided to export oil through an independent pipeline to the Turkish port of Ceyhan.

The central government considers it illegal for Irbil to export oil without going through the Iraqi national oil company, while Kurdish authorities have said the practice is meant to compensate for budget transfers withheld from the Kurdish region by Baghdad.

Baghdad filed a case against the move that led to the halt.

The halt in oil exports to Türkiye has reportedly cost Iraq more than $23 billion.