Kurdistan’s oil exports to resume 'in coming hours’: oil ministry

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s oil minister on Friday said the resumption of Kurdistan Region’s oil exports will be announced “in the coming hours,” nearly two years after they were suspended.

“Iraq will announce in the coming hours the commencement of the Region’s oil export operations” through the State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) via Turkey’s Ceyhan port, Oil Minister Hayyan Abdul Ghani said in a statement from his ministry.

Exports will begin at a rate of 185,000 barrels per day and gradually increase to the level set in the federal budget, according to the ministry statement.

Oil producers operating in the Kurdistan Region said they are ready to resume exports, but first need a formal agreement about payments.

“As has been repeatedly made clear, APIKUR member companies remain prepared to immediately resume exports as soon as formal agreements are reached to provide surety of payment for past and future exports consistent with our existing contractual legal and commercial terms. There has not yet been any outreach in this regard to APIKUR member companies,” Myles B. Caggins III, spokesperson for Association of the Petroleum Industry of Kurdistan (APIKUR), told Rudaw English on Friday.

The exports were stopped in March 2023 after the International Court of Arbitration ruled in Iraq’s favor that Turkey had violated a 1973 pipeline agreement when it allowed the Kurdistan Region to independently export oil. The final hurdle in negotiations to resume exports was resolved earlier this year when the Iraqi parliament passed an amendment to the federal budget to increase transportation and production fees paid to oil producers.

The stop has cost billions of dollars in lost revenue.

Updated at 12:43 pm.