Iraq-Türkiye crude pipeline resumes oil flow, Turkish minister says

ISTANBUL

Oil shipments resumed through the Iraq-Türkiye pipeline at 7.07 am local time (0407GMT) on Saturday, Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar announced.

The pipeline had been shut since the Feb. 6, 2023 earthquakes, while the Turkish state pipeline operator BOTAS restored it to operational readiness in October in the same year, Bayraktar said on the Turkish social media platform NSosyal.

Iraq's official news agency INA also announced on Saturday that oil exports from the fields in northern Iraq's Kurdish regional administration (KRG) have resumed.

Oil exports resumed at the Fishkhabur oil field with the participation of a KRG delegation, the Iraqi central government, and oil companies, Erbil-based Rudaw TV reported.

On Thursday, Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shiaa al-Sudani said that oil produced in fields within the KRG region will be exported through the Iraq-Türkiye pipeline.

“Today we reached a historic agreement under which the Federal Ministry of Oil will receive crude oil produced from the fields in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and export it through the Iraq-Türkiye pipeline,” al-Sudani said through the US social media company X.

The KRG announced earlier that agreements had been signed with local and foreign companies to start oil exports, and that the decision by the Iraqi Ministry of Oil was awaited to launch the oil flow as soon as possible.