ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s oil minister said on Thursday that Baghdad is exploring the possibility of exporting oil from the southern Basra province to Turkey through the Iraq-Turkey pipeline, with discussions to resume Kurdish oil exports also ongoing. Chairing a meeting of the Iraqi-Turkish Committee, Minister Hayyan Abdul Ghani discussed “the imminent activation of the oil export file through the oil pipeline to the Turkish port of Ceyhan and the possibility of increasing exports through this pipeline from Basra’s oil,” according to a statement from Iraq’s oil ministry. The statement comes as officials from Iraq’s oil ministry and the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) natural resources ministry, as well as foreign oil companies, are meeting in Baghdad to discuss the resumption of Kurdish oil exports. A representative from one of the international oil companies invited to the meeting told Rudaw English on Thursday, on the condition of anonymity, that a senior US official from the American embassy in Baghdad is set to attend, noting that Washington is increasingly pressuring Baghdad to resume Kurdish oil exports swiftly. International oil companies operating in the Kurdistan Region have affirmed that they want assurances that payments under Iraq’s budget amendment - requiring Baghdad to pay $16 per barrel in production costs to the KRG - will be reliably distributed to the producers. Oil exports from the Kurdistan Region through the Iraq-Turkey pipeline were halted in March 2023 after a Paris-based arbitration court ruled in favor of Baghdad against Ankara, saying the latter had violated a 1973 pipeline agreement by allowing Erbil to begin independent oil exports in 2014.
