Kurdistan-Turkey Oil Pipeline Ready for Operations Soon: Turkish Minister
Turkey's Ceyhan Port is soon to resume taking Kurdistan Region's crude exports after maintenance work on Kurdistan-Turkey pipeline was recently completed following February's deadly earthquakes, according to the Turkish official.
"Iraq's northern oil export route through Turkey will soon be ready to resume operation after checks on pipeline maintenance and repairs to flood damage. A survey of the oil pipeline is complete and it will soon be "technically" ready for operation," Reuters reported on Friday, citing remarks from Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar.
In a news briefing on Thursday, Minister Bayraktar had said: "As of today, the independent surveyor completed their survey and now they're preparing their report.... But the pipeline will be operational technically. It is more or less ready and we will start the operation soon."
On March 25th of this year, Turkey suspended the oil export route from the Kurdistan Region due to an arbitration ruling from the France-based International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). The court ruled that Ankara had to compensate Baghdad for unauthorized oil exports from the Kurdistan Region between 2014 and 2018.
Before the court ruling, Erbil was exporting approximately 450,000 barrels of oil daily, constituting 0.5 percent of the world's oil production. The suspension of these oil exports led to a notable increase in global oil prices subsequently. Following the court's decision, oil companies operating in the Kurdistan Region either stopped production or reduced output, directing the oil to storage tanks instead.
