Turkey agreed to resume Kurdistan Region oil export, says Iraqi diplomat

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Iraqi ambassador to Ankara on Thursday announced that Turkey had agreed to the resumption of the Kurdistan Region’s oil export following over six months of stoppage.

Ambassador Majid Al-Lajmawi’s remarks came during an interview the diplomat had with the Arabic-language Al-Hadath Channel on Thursday to discuss the bilateral relations as well as the resumption of oil flow through the Iraq-Turkey Pipeline.

“The Turkish side has agreed to immediately resume oil export through the pipeline,” Al-Lajmawi said.

In an interview with NTV, Turkey’s Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar on Thursday said the pipeline is ready to export the Kurdish oil export, which has been halted since March 25 at the request of Baghdad after Iraq had claimed victory against Turkey at the International Chamber of Commerce’s Court of Arbitration.

The Court awarded Iraq $1.4 billion in compensation.

The ball is now in Iraq’s court, the Turkish minister said.

Bayraktar has previously said that Turkey would finalize the preparations for the export by the end of this week.

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Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Turkey, and Iraq have participated in several rounds of negotiations since then to resume the export, whose loss is estimated to be nearly $6 billion.

Oil companies and a number of countries, including the US and Russia, have previously called for the resumption of oil exports. 

Prior to the halt, the Kurdish region was independently exporting 450,000 barrels of oil per day through the pipeline, which was also sending another 100,000 barrels of Iraqi oil from Kirkuk Province.

In order for the Kurdistan Region to receive a 12.6 percent share of Iraq’s budget annually, it has to sell 400,000 barrels of oil per day via SOMO, per the country’s budget law.