Iraq resumes oil exports through Türkiye as Kirkuk–Ceyhan pipeline reopens after over a decade

Iraq’s North Oil Company said on Wednesday it resumed oil exports through Türkiye’s Ceyhan port, restarting crude flows via the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, which was shut ​for more than a decade.

In a statement carried by the state news agency INA, the company said operations resumed via the Saralo pumping station, with an initial export capacity of 250,000 barrels per day.

The move follows an agreement between Iraq’s federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to reactivate a key export route and support Iraq’s oil export system, the agency reported.

The KRG said on Tuesday that it has reached an understanding with Baghdad to resume oil exports through the region to Türkiye’s port of Ceyhan.

The reopening of the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline provides an alternative route to another pipeline from the Kurdistan region.

Exports via the 960 km pipeline, which once handled about 0.5 percent of global supply, were halted in 2014 after repeated attacks by Daesh terrorists, says Reuters.

In a statement on X, KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said the region decided to allow oil to flow again through its pipeline “as soon as possible,” citing “the extraordinary circumstances facing the country and the responsibility we all share to get through this difficult chapter.”

The development comes as the Strait of Hormuz has been at the centre of global energy concerns since Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced its closure to most vessels in retaliation for US-Israeli attacks that have killed around 1,300 people in Iran since February 28.

Before the conflict, around 20 million barrels of oil passed through the strait daily. Its disruption has pushed oil prices higher.

On Sunday, Iraq’s oil ministry said in a statement that it was ready to resume crude exports through the northern pipeline toward Ceyhan Port amid disruptions to southern export routes linked to the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz.

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Source: TRT