Oil is flowing again from Iraq’s Kurdistan Region to Turkey, a move hailed as “historic” and expected to boost Iraq’s federal budget by up to $500 million monthly.
The autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq has re-opened the oil spigot after years of turmoil with Baghdad prevented oil exports.
Rudaw media in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq, said that oil exports had resumed on Saturday.
KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani called the resumption of the flow was “historic.”
The exports had been suspended in 2023, with the resumption meaning that the oil can now flow to Turkey via a pipeline.
“The operations commenced at 6 a.m. at a high pace and complete flow without recording any technical problems worth mentioning, reflecting the success of the joint efforts between the federal government and the regional government in achieving this important accomplishment,” Iraq’s oil ministry said in a statement.
The route to this resumption has been complicated.
During the war on ISIS after the terrorist group took over a swath of Iraq in 2014, oil flow from the Kurdistan region to Turkey when Erbil was largely cut off from Baghdad. In those days ISIS controlled Mosul and many Sunni cities. It also threatened Kirkuk, which sits on the road between Erbil and Baghdad.
As such, the KRG had to fend for itself. Exporting oil to Turkey helped the KRG. Turkey also invested heavily in the Kurdistan region. Cash flowed into Dohuk and Erbil as Turkish companies moved in. Turkey had also played a key role in Erbil’s airport reconstruction. It made sense for Turkey to help transit the oil.
However, a Paris arbitration subsequently “found that Ankara had violated a 1973 pipeline agreement with Baghdad by allowing Erbil to independently export oil since 2014,” Rudaw noted. This came after Baghdad clashed with Erbil over an independence referendum in 2017. Baghdad was trying to weaken Erbil’s autonomy.
Now the oil is flowing again, marking a step towards managing Iraq’s national wealth, as Baghdad sees it.
For Turkey it’s also important. “Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar confirmed the flow of the Kurdish oil to his country at 7:07 am, Saturday” Rudaw reported.
“Mazhar Mohammed Saleh, an advisor to the Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani for financial and economic affairs, told Rudaw on Saturday that the resumption of oil exports from the Kurdistan Region would contribute approximately 400-500 million dollars monthly to the country federal budget.”