Iraq, Turkey to discuss oil export resumption in Baghdad next week: Official
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq and Turkey have reached an agreement to meet in Baghdad next week to discuss the resumption of the Kurdistan Region’s oil exports which have been put on hold for nearly three months, said an Iraqi official on Thursday.
The Kurdistan Region's oil exports through Turkey's Ceyhan port are yet to resume after being halted in late March following a ruling from a Paris-based arbitration court saying that Ankara had breached its 1973 pipeline agreement with Baghdad.
“An agreement has been reached with Turkey to hold a meeting in Baghdad on the 19th of this month [June] to discuss the mechanism to resume the pumping of crude oil from the Kurdistan field to the Turkish Ceyhan port,” Basim Mohammed Khudair, the Iraqi oil ministry’s undersecretary for extraction affairs, told state-owned al-Sabah newspaper on Monday.
Khudair said that both sides have stressed the importance of restarting the exports, noting that Ankara has attributed the delay due to the inspection process.
Kurdish and Iraqi authorities have repeatedly declared their willingness to resume the exports, saying the reason the reason the process has not yet restarted is because Turkey wants to inspect and rehabilitate the port tubes that might have been damaged following February’s earthquake.
The International Monetary Fund said earlier this month that growth momentum in Iraq's economy has slowed down in recent months, largely affected by the oil production cuts and the halt in exporting Kurdistan Region's oil.
Article 13 of the recently-passed Iraqi federal budget bill obliges the Kurdistan Region to hand over, on a daily basis, at least 400,000 barrels of crude oil to the country’s State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) to be exported through the Ceyhan port, or be used domestically in case it is not exported.
The Kurdistan Region's oil exports through Turkey's Ceyhan port are yet to resume after being halted in late March following a ruling from a Paris-based arbitration court saying that Ankara had breached its 1973 pipeline agreement with Baghdad.
“An agreement has been reached with Turkey to hold a meeting in Baghdad on the 19th of this month [June] to discuss the mechanism to resume the pumping of crude oil from the Kurdistan field to the Turkish Ceyhan port,” Basim Mohammed Khudair, the Iraqi oil ministry’s undersecretary for extraction affairs, told state-owned al-Sabah newspaper on Monday.
Khudair said that both sides have stressed the importance of restarting the exports, noting that Ankara has attributed the delay due to the inspection process.
Kurdish and Iraqi authorities have repeatedly declared their willingness to resume the exports, saying the reason the reason the process has not yet restarted is because Turkey wants to inspect and rehabilitate the port tubes that might have been damaged following February’s earthquake.
The International Monetary Fund said earlier this month that growth momentum in Iraq's economy has slowed down in recent months, largely affected by the oil production cuts and the halt in exporting Kurdistan Region's oil.
Article 13 of the recently-passed Iraqi federal budget bill obliges the Kurdistan Region to hand over, on a daily basis, at least 400,000 barrels of crude oil to the country’s State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) to be exported through the Ceyhan port, or be used domestically in case it is not exported.