Iraq has not received formal notification from Türkiye on whether the oil exports pipeline is ready to commence its operations, two senior Iraqi oil officials said Sunday.
The officials spoke following Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar’s comments last Monday when he said the oil pipeline bringing crude from Iraq was ready.
“We as an oil ministry need to be informed officially by the Turkish side about the recent developments on the pipeline status. We heard about it in media only,” said a senior oil ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A second senior energy adviser told Reuters Iraq was also waiting for talks on “lingering financial and technical issues.”
The Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, which carries almost half a million barrels of crude daily, has been offline since March after Ankara halted flows after an arbitration ruling by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).
The ICC ordered Ankara to pay Baghdad damages of $1.5 billion (TL 41.55 billion) over what it said were unauthorized exports by Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) between 2014 and 2018.
Türkiye, on the other hand, said the ICC had recognized most of Ankara’s demands. The Energy Ministry said the chamber ordered Iraq to compensate Türkiye for several violations concerning the case.
After the ruling, Ankara started maintenance work on the 970-kilometer (600-mile) pipeline that contributes about 0.5% of global crude supply in the wake of major February earthquakes.
Bayraktar last week said the dispute had been settled but did not disclose details of the agreement.
Baghdad and Ankara agreed to wait until a maintenance assessment on the pipeline that crosses a seismic zone was complete to restart flows while continuing their legal battle on arbitration awards.
Türkiye’s energy minister is expected to visit Baghdad and the resumption of Iraq’s northern oil exports will feature in discussions, the senior oil ministry official said without saying when the visit would happen.
