Kirkuk to become main hub for Kurdistan Region oil before export via Ceyhan
Shafaq News – Kirkuk
The North Oil Company in Kirkuk will be the main hub for receiving and storing oil from the Kurdistan Region before pumping it to Turkiye’s Ceyhan port for export, a company source said on Thursday.
The source told Shafaq News that a final agreement has been signed between Baghdad and Erbil, including a memorandum of understanding aimed at ending the export halt that has cost Iraq more than $20 billion.
Under the deal, the source explained, oil delivered by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to the Ministry of Oil will be stored at the North Oil Company’s facilities before being transferred to Ceyhan. The agreement is expected to take effect in the coming days, after which exports to the port will resume.
On Wednesday, the KRG’s Ministry of Natural Resources and the federal Ministry of Oil announced an agreement on the export mechanism following a series of technical meetings and consultations that began on July 17.
According to the KRG ministry, the talks included field visits to all oilfields in the Region, followed by a comprehensive technical assessment and intensive discussions. These resulted on August 11 in an agreement to export oil in line with the daily production of the Region’s fields, allocating 50,000 barrels per day for domestic needs, with the remainder handed over to Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) for export.
The ministry noted that resuming exports still depends on the outcome of talks between the federal government and Turkiye, as well as the completion of required procedures.
Exports from the Kurdistan Region through the Ceyhan pipeline have been suspended since March 2023, following a ruling by the International Chamber of Commerce’s arbitration court in Paris ordering Turkiye to compensate Iraq for allowing exports without Baghdad’s approval.
Since then, Baghdad and Erbil, with Ankara’s participation, have held negotiations to reach a legally and technically agreed framework to restart shipments.
