An oil tanker has been booked to load about 700,000 barrels of oil from Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) at the Mediterranean export terminal at the Turkish port of Ceyhan on Thursday, a report said on Tuesday.
That will make Vallesina the first tanker to load crude following the resumption of flows through a pipeline from KRG to Türkiye on Saturday after a 2.5-year hiatus over legal and technical disputes.
The restart came after eight oil companies operating in KRG reached agreements with Baghdad and the regional government.
According to the agreement, the KRG will deliver the crude to SOMO, Iraq's national oil marketing company, and an independent trader will handle sales from Ceyhan using SOMO's official prices. Producers will get $16 per barrel.
Oil flows to Ceyhan port were running at 150,000-160,000 barrels per day (bpd) as of Monday, sources told Reuters.
The restart is expected to eventually bring up to 230,000 bpd of crude back to international markets at a time when OPEC+ is boosting output to gain market share.
Flows through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline had been shut following an arbitration ruling by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) that Türkiye is appealing.
The ICC ordered Ankara to pay Baghdad $1.5 billion in damages over what it said were unauthorized exports by the KRG between 2014 and 2018.
Türkiye, on the other hand, said the ICC had recognized most of Ankara's demands.
In July, Ankara submitted a draft proposal to Baghdad to renew and broaden an energy agreement between the two countries to cover cooperation in oil, gas, petrochemicals and electricity.
The preliminary plan, agreed last Wednesday, calls for the KRG to commit to delivering at least 230,000 bpd to SOMO, while keeping an additional 50,000 bpd for local use.
The Association of the Petroleum Industry of Kurdistan (APIKUR), which represents international oil firms in the Iraqi region, estimated the losses to Iraq since the pipeline closed to be more than $35 billion.
Iraq is a founding member of OPEC, and crude oil sales make up 90% of the country's revenues.
The resumption of KRG oil flows will raise Iraq's exports to nearly 3.6 million bpd in the coming days, according to officials.
