The oil pipeline bringing crude from northern Iraq to Türkiye is ready to operate and will restart flows this week, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said Monday.
“The pipeline is ready to operate and within this week, we will start operating the Iraqi-Türkiye pipeline, which after resuming operations will be able to supply half a million barrels, almost, to global oil markets," Bayraktar said during the ADIPEC conference in Abu Dhabi.
Türkiye has been a reliable transit route for oil and gas, he added.
The Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, which carries almost half a million barrels of crude a day, 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 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.
The Iraqi federal government and the KRG signed their own temporary oil accord in April. The deal signaled the end of independent oil exports by KRG.
Bayraktar on Monday said the dispute has been settled but did not disclose details of the agreement.
After the ruling, Ankara started maintenance work on the 970-kilometer-long pipeline that contributes about 0.5% of global crude supply in the wake of major February earthquakes.
Baghdad and Ankara agreed to wait until a maintenance assessment on the pipeline, which goes through a seismic zone, was complete to restart flows while still engaging in a legal battle on arbitration awards.
Ankara was weighing legal action against Iraq, which has an outstanding enforcement case against Türkiye, Bayraktar said last month.
Meanwhile, Bayraktar highlighted Türkiye's ambitions to become an energy trading hub, which he said was one step closer to realization given the recent gas supply agreements signed with Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Moldova.
The country's priorities also include the supply of affordable energy to its citizens to meet growing demand, along with its aim to decarbonize its economy.
"Demand is growing in Türkiye and to meet this growing demand, we need a lot of investment in power, gas and oil," Bayraktar said, given the expectations that electricity demand in the country will grow by 3.7% over the next two decades.
Bayraktar said Türkiye is heavily investing in renewable resources to help meet growing local power demand, reduce energy dependency on foreign resources and contribute to the country's decarbonization.
The country is also diverging toward nuclear power and is constructing its first nuclear plant, Akkuyu, in Mersin in the country's south.
Its ultimate goal is to increase electricity production capacity from nuclear energy to 20 gigawatts, nearly four times what the Akkuyu plant could generate when operating at full capacity within a few years. It seeks to achieve this through large-scale conventional as well as small modular reactors.
"Türkiye hopes to finalize discussions with China and strike a deal on constructing the country’s third nuclear power plant “within the next few months,” Bayraktar last month said.
Türkiye has been engaged in talks about building a second power plant in the Black Sea city of Sinop.
"We have a very ambitious plan to add each and every single year five gigawatts of solar and wind capacity, and we would also like to use nuclear as an important decarbonization tool," Bayraktar said on Monday.
Natural gas will also aid the country in its energy transition goals.
"We are also investing heavily in upstream projects for natural gas because we see that natural gas will play a crucial role in our energy transition. That's why we are investing heavily in upstream projects together with some potential partners," he said.
