Iraq resumes Kurdistan oil exports to Türkiye

Crude oil flowed on Saturday (27 September) through a pipeline from the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq to Türkiye for the first time in two-and-a-half years, after an interim deal broke the deadlock, Iraq's oil ministry said.

"Operations started at a rapid pace and with complete smoothness without recording any significant technical problems," the ministry said.

The agreement between Iraq's federal government, the Kurdistan regional government (KRG) and foreign oil producers will see 180,000 to 190,000 barrels per day of oil flow to Türkiye's Ceyhan, Iraq's oil minister told Rudaw on Friday.

The U.S. had pushed for a restart, which is expected to eventually bring up to 230,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude back to international markets at a time when OPEC+ is boosting output to gain market share.

The preliminary plan, agreed on Wednesday, calls for the KRG to commit to delivering at least 230,000 bpd to Iraq's state oil marketer SOMO, while keeping an additional 50,000 bpd for local use, according to Iraqi officials with knowledge of the agreement.

An independent trader will handle sales from the Turkish port of Ceyhan using SOMO's official prices.

For each barrel sold, $16 is to be transferred to an escrow account and distributed proportionally to producers, with the rest of the revenue going to SOMO, the officials said.

Copied