Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) – Iraqi Oil Minister Hayan Abdul-Ghani recently revealed that Baghdad and Erbil are in negotiations over the resumption of oil exports from northern Iraq.
“We will resume oil exports from the oil fields of Iraqi Kurdistan,” Abdul-Ghani told Kurdistan24 News.
“Recently, an agreement was reached between the Ministry of Electricity and a company operating in the gas sector in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq,” Abdul-Ghani added.
Iraq’s oil minister said the deal was aimed at facilitating the transportation of 100 million cubic feet of natural gas.
Abdul-Ghani explained that the federal government in Baghdad asked the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to hand over oil produced in northern Iraq to the State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) in order to be able to resume oil exports from the north via Turkey, according to Rudaw News.
“We have communicated with the KRG to entrust oil production in the north to SOMO which will be exported to the Turkish port of Ceyhan via the pipeline linking Iraq and Turkey,” said the Iraqi Minister of Oil.
Turkey stopped Iraqi exports of 450,000 barrels per day via the pipeline stretching from Iraq’s Kurdistan region to the Turkish port of Ceyhan on March 25, 2023.
Turkey’s decision to suspend its oil exports follows an arbitration ruling by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Paris.
The ruling required Turkey to pay Baghdad $1.5 billion in compensation for damages caused by the export of KRG oil without authorization from the federal government in Baghdad between 2014 and 2018.
The KRG began exporting crude oil independently in 2013, a move considered illegal by Baghdad.