KRG shipped 7.5M barrels since September

Shafaq News – Erbil

Kurdistan Region exported more than 7.5 million barrels of oil since resuming shipments through Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO), a senior Kurdish official said on Saturday.

In a press conference, Rebaz Hamlan, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) financial adviser, explained that the KRG continues to transfer non-oil revenues to the Iraqi government, adding that all technical issues regarding public sector salaries between Erbil and Baghdad have been resolved.

Oil exports from the Kurdistan Region restarted on September 27, with current flows averaging about 190,000 barrels per day through the Fishkhabur–Ceyhan pipeline.

The resumption followed months of discussions between Iraq’s Oil Ministry and the KRG’s Ministry of Natural Resources, which led to an arrangement allowing SOMO to oversee and market Kurdish crude through Turkiye’s Ceyhan port.

Exports had been halted on March 25, 2023, after an international arbitration ruling ordered Turkiye to stop loading Kurdish oil without Baghdad’s consent — a decision that froze one of Iraq’s key export routes and cost both governments billions in lost revenue.

Read more: Resumption of oil exports from Kurdistan: Fragile stability with strategic implications