Oil shipments resumed through the Iraq–Türkiye pipeline at 7.07 a.m. local time on Saturday, Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar announced.
The pipeline had been shut since the Feb. 6, 2023 earthquakes. State pipeline operator BOTAS restored it to operational readiness in October same year, Bayraktar said in a post on the Turkish social media platform NSosyal.
On Thursday, Irak’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shiaa al-Sudani said that oil produced in fields within Iraq's Kurdish Regional Administration (KRG) 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 on the US social media company, X.
The KRG Ministry of Natural Resources 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.
By Handan Kazanci
Anadolu Agency
energy@aa.com.tr