Iraq is planning to restore an idle pipeline that would enable oil to be transported straight to Türkiye's southern Ceyhan port while bypassing its Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Iraqi Oil Minister Hayan Abdel-Ghani said on Monday.
Iraq will complete inspection of a 100-kilometer (62-mile) section of the pipeline "within a week from now" to enable direct exports from Kirkuk, Abdel-Ghani said in a video statement.
The reopening of the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, which has been shut for more than a decade, would provide an alternative route to a pipeline from the KRG region.
Exports via the 960 km pipeline, which once handled about 0.5% of global supply, were halted in 2014 after repeated attacks by the Daesh terrorist organization.
The Oil Ministry had previously asked the KRG authorities to allow it to use the Kurdistan pipeline as an alternative route for crude flows disrupted by the Iran conflict. But it later said the KRG had set arbitrary conditions for the pipeline's use.
Responding on Sunday, Iraq's Kurdish authorities rejected the accusation that they were refusing to allow crude exports through the pipeline and said Baghdad had failed to address security and economic challenges facing the region's oil sector.
Oil production from Iraq's main southern oilfields, where most of its crude is produced and exported, has plunged 70% to just 1.3 million barrels per day, sources told Reuters on March 8, as the Iran conflict effectively shut off the vital Strait of Hormuz.
Iraq's Oil Ministry sent a letter in early March to the KRG in northern Iraq seeking permission to pump at least 100,000 barrels per day of crude from Kirkuk oilfields through the pipeline network to Türkiye's Ceyhan energy hub, according to reports.
Iraq's KRG officials say tensions with Baghdad have risen after the federal government moved to implement a new electronic customs system, allowing it to monitor imports and revenues, a step the KRG region sees as undermining its autonomy and control over trade.
