Iraq is ready on a last reply from Türkiye to renew its northern oil exports by means of the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, the nation’s oil minister stated Tuesday.
Hayan Abdel-Ghani’s remarks come as oil manufacturing in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Authorities (KRG)-ruled area continues to drop as export flows to Türkiye’s Ceyhan port present few indicators of restarting after a stoppage that has lasted nearly two months.
Ankara halted Iraq’s 450,000 barrels per day (bpd) of northern exports by means of the Iraq-Türkiye pipeline on March 25 after an arbitration ruling by the Worldwide Chamber of Commerce (ICC). The ICC ordered Türkiye to pay Baghdad damages of $1.5 billion for unauthorized exports by the KRG between 2014 and 2018.
Ankara stated the ICC had acknowledged most of Türkiye’s calls for. Its Vitality Ministry stated the chamber ordered Iraq to compensate Türkiye for a number of violations regarding the case.
The halt, coupled with restricted space for storing within the area, despatched a lot of the area’s 450,000 bpd of manufacturing offline inside weeks. Fields that had continued producing are actually offline or working with decreased output.
The 4,500 barrel per day (bpd) Taq Taq area is now not producing into storage, stated a spokesperson at operator Genel Vitality. The Khurmala area is now producing about 50,000 bpd, in response to a supply acquainted with area operations.
It is a discount from 100,000 bpd a month in the past and 135,000 bpd earlier than the pipeline stoppage.
The ensuing misplaced income for the KRG stands at greater than $1.5 billion, in response to Reuters estimates based mostly on exports of 375,000 bpd, the KRG’s historic low cost in opposition to Brent crude and 59 days of outages.
Iraq reportedly requested Türkiye this month to renew pipeline flows and loading operations at Ceyhan on Could 13 after spending weeks resolving numerous points with the KRG relating to a restart deal.
Abdel-Ghani stated Tuesday that Türkiye informed his authorities it was evaluating whether or not the pipeline was broken due to the devastating February earthquakes and a technical group had been evaluating the scenario.
Turkish pipeline operator BOTAŞ reportedly additionally stated it wanted extra time to verify the technical feasibility of the pipeline to renew flows.
Iraqi authorities officers beforehand stated they blamed the elections for the delay. Türkiye held presidential elections on Could 14, however neither of the 2 important candidates exceeded the required 50% of the votes, and a runoff is scheduled for Could 28.