In mid-October, Kamal Mohammed Salih, Acting Minister of Natural Resources for the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), announced that the ministry expects to finalize a deal with Baghdad soon to restart Iraqi Kurdistan’s oil exports.
Salih’s remarks came after a delegation from the Iraqi Ministry of Oil visited Erbil for discussions aimed at resolving key issues, according to Shafaq News.
While the Kurdistan region has no objections to exporting oil through the State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO) and channeling revenues to the federal government, the current challenge lies in the cost of extraction. Salih noted that oil companies have rejected the established rate of $6 per barrel for extraction, making continued production unfeasible despite KRG’s efforts to facilitate export resumption.
The Iraqi official expressed optimism that a suitable solution would be reached with Baghdad to address these concerns.
Since March 2023, crude oil exports through the Iraq-Turkey pipeline—previously responsible for around 0.5 percent of the world’s oil supply—have been suspended due to legal and financial disputes. This halt followed a ruling by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Paris, which found that Ankara had violated a 1973 agreement by permitting oil exports without Baghdad’s consent.
Despite multiple rounds of talks involving KRG officials, the federal government, and Turkish authorities, foreign oil companies have halted production, and exports have yet to resume.
