ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - The Association of the Petroleum Industry of Kurdistan (APIKUR) welcomed a recent phone call between Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio regarding the need for “quickly” reopening the Iraq-Turkey pipeline for the resumption of the Kurdistan Region’s oil exports.
APIKUR “applauds U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s efforts to restart oil exports from the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, including in a call with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani on February 25, 2025,” read a statement by the association. “According to a readout of the call published by the State Department, the two agreed on the need to quickly reopen the Iraq-Turkiye Pipeline and to honor contractual terms for U.S. companies working in Iraq to attract additional investment.”
APIKUR also welcomed PM Sudani’s address to a forum in Erbil that Baghdad now seeks to “turn a new page” with oil companies operating in the Kurdistan Region.
"These statements come in the wake of a series of statements by senior Baghdad and Erbil officials suggesting that exports are set to resume imminently,” APIKUR said on Thursday.
After months of wranglings, Iraq and the Kurdistan Region eventually announced earlier this week that they reached an agreement to resume the Region’s oil exports to the international market through Turkey’s Ceyhan port.
As per the agreement, Iraq will take 185,000 barrels of oil from the Kurdistan Region in the first stage of resuming exports through the Ceyhan pipeline, and will gradually increase to reach 400,000 barrels exported daily.
Turkey’s energy ministry, however, on Monday told The New Region that there is currently no decision on the resumption of the Kurdistan Region’s oil export, shortly after Iraq’s Oil Minister Hayyan Abdul Ghani said that the exports would resume in two days.
“No new decisions have been made and no time has been set,” the Turkish energy ministry said.
The Iraqi government is reportedly making “a fresh attempt to have all Kurdish oil production-sharing contracts declared illegal,” Reuters reported on Thursday, citing a court document and a government official, a move possibly creating obstacles for a speedy resumption of the Kurdistan Region’s oil exports.
"As has been repeatedly made clear, APIKUR member companies remain prepared to immediately resume exports as soon as formal agreements are reached to provide surety of payment for past and future exports consistent with our existing contractual legal and commercial terms,” APIKUR said. "There has not yet been any outreach in this regard to APIKUR member companies.”
Exports of the Kurdistan Region’s oil through the Turkish Ceyhan pipeline, where part of Kirkuk’s oil was also exported, were halted in March 2023 after Ankara lost a case against Baghdad in a Paris-based arbitration court.
The case accused Ankara of breaching a 1973 agreement by allowing the KRG to start selling oil independent of Baghdad. The halt in exports has dealt a major blow to Iraq and the Region's economy, with over $27 billion in lost revenue to date.
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