Iraq's oil minister arrives in Erbil
Shafaq News/ Iraq's Oil Minister Hayyan Abdul-Ghani arrived in Erbil, the capital city of the Kurdistan region, on Sunday amid hopes that the years-long dispute over who should control the region's oil reach a resolution.
Meanwhile, some 450,000 barrels per day of oil exports from the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq remain shut in.
"The visit comes following an agreement between Iraq's Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani and Kurdistan's Prime Minister Masrour Barzani to address oil issues," spokesman to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) said in a press release yesterday, Saturday.
"The meeting will mainly discuss the costs and procedures of resuming oil exports from the Kurdistan region," he said, "the delegation will remain in the region for three days."
Turkey halted flows through Iraq's northern oil export route after an arbitration ruling in March by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) ordered Ankara to pay Baghdad damages for unauthorised exports between 2014 and 2018.
Turkey's closure of the Iraq-Turkey pipeline in March has collectively cost Iraq, KRG, and oil producers a total of $7 billion in lost export revenues, the Association of the Petroleum Industry of Kurdistan (APIKUR), has previously said.
Iraq, OPEC's second-largest oil producer, exports about 85% of its crude via ports in the south. The northern route via Turkey accounts for about 0.5% of global oil supply.
