Turkish Energy Minister Alp Arslan Bayraktar announced that the oil pipeline connecting Iraq and Turkey will be technically ready for operation soon and will be qualified to transport oil from northern Iraq to the Turkish port of Ceyhan for export, without specifying a specific date, indicating that the line’s inspection has been completed.
“As of today,” Bayrakdar stated in a news conference on Thursday, “an independent survey company has completed its work and is now preparing the report.”
Turkey halted pipeline traffic on March 25 after the International Chamber of Commerce determined that Ankara must compensate Baghdad for illicit exports by the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq between 2014 and 2018.
Turkey then began repair work on the pipeline, which runs through a seismically active area and was allegedly damaged by the February earthquake.
Last August, Iraqi Oil Minister Hayan Abdul Ghani agreed in Ankara with Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Alp Arslan Bayraktar on the need of resuming the flow of Iraqi Kurdistan oil to Turkey after pipeline restoration activities were completed.
1.47 billion dollars
It is worth noting that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held Baghdad responsible for resuming the pumping of Iraqi Kurdistan’s oil, stating on July 12, 2023, that the delay in the return of supplies and the payment of compensation was caused by a dispute between the central government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government.
The Iraqi government had launched a case against Turkey for getting crude oil from the Kurdistan region without its permission, which the International Chamber of Commerce relied on in its decision to halt shipments and award Baghdad $1.47 billion in compensation.
The decision resulted in the disruption of approximately 400,000 barrels per day of crude oil supplies from Kurdistan fields in northern Iraq, as well as 75,000 barrels from other Iraqi regions traveling from Kirkuk to the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean Sea, a distance of 970 kilometers.
