ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – The pipeline exporting oil from Iraq to Turkey’s Ceyhan port has been ready since October 2023, Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Alparslan Bayraktar said on Sunday, adding that shipments will begin following talks between Erbil and Baghdad.

“This pipeline has been ready for operation since October 4, 2023, that is, for about one and a half years,” Bayraktar told state media on Sunday, adding that the pipeline was shut down for a few months initially for maintenance, however has been available since.

The Turkish minister said that exports will begin in light of meetings between Baghdad, Erbil, and the oil producing companies, without specifying the date.

Bayraktar’s words come two days before the Iraqi oil ministry is set to meet with the Kurdistan Region’s ministry of natural resources regarding the contracts of oil companies operating in the Region.

The Association of the Petroleum Industry of Kurdistan (APIKUR) – an association of eight companies that together make up around 60 percent of the total amount of Kurdish oil production – has also been extended an invitation to attend the meeting.

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.

Speaking to The New Region on Saturday, APIKUR Spokesperson Myles B. Caggins III said that “APIKUR member companies do not have written agreements and will not resume exports until there is a clear path for payments, among other conditions.”

“APIKUR member companies have not received any outreach to establish new agreements that provide surety of payment for past and future exports consistent with our existing contractual legal and commercial terms,” he added.

The Region’s oil export controversies come amid the Iraqi government reportedly making “a fresh attempt to have all Kurdish oil production-sharing contracts declared illegal,” according to a Thursday Reuters report, citing a court document and a government official.

A source from the Iraqi state-owned oil marketing company (SOMO) told The New Region previously on background that the Iraqi side had completed all the necessary procedures to resume export.

After the nearly two year halt, Baghdad and Erbil eventually announced late February that they reached an agreement to resume the Region’s oil exports to the international market through Turkey’s Ceyhan port.

Iraqi Minister of Oil Hayyan Abdul Ghani told state media late last month that the pipeline to export oil through Turkey’s Ceyhan is ready and that the resumption is now pending Turkey’s approval.

The halt in exports has dealt a major blow to Iraq and the Kurdistan Region's economy, with over $27 billion in lost revenue to date.