ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Iraqi oil ministry’s North Oil Company on Saturday told The New Region that both parties are ready to resume the Kurdistan Region’s oil exports, with the move currently pending approval from Baghdad. 

“The Kurdistan Regional Government sent a letter a week ago to the Iraqi oil marketing company SOMO [State Oil Marketing Organization], in which it announced the KRG’s readiness to resume the export of oil through SOMO,” KRG spokesperson Peshawa Hawramani told The New Region on Sunday. 

After months of negotiations and several meetings between Erbil and Baghdad delegations, the Iraqi cabinet on Tuesday approved a previously agreed-upon structure for the mechanisms of exporting the Region’s oil, before referring it to a committee at the Iraqi oil ministry for further study of the feasibility of the articles within the agreement. 

The New Region understands that the oil companies’ employees have been put on alert for the possible resumption of oil exports, specifically in the Khurmala field in Erbil province, meanwhile Kar Group, an Iraqi-Kurdish oil firm, has prepared the fields it operates to market the Region’s oil. 

Exports of the Kurdistan Region’s oil through the Turkish Ceyhan pipeline 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 independently of Baghdad in 2014. 

The halt has cost Erbil and Baghdad over $35 billion in revenue to date, according to the Association of the Petroleum Industry of Kurdistan (APIKUR), a conglomeration of international oil companies working in the Region’s oil sector.

The Kurdistan Region’s oil flows through a pipeline infrastructure laid down by the North Oil Company. A source within the company confirmed to The New Region on Sunday that their pipelines are ready to transport the Region’s oil, adding that they have put in place an oil measuring station in Zakho in preparation for the resumption of exports.

The dispute between Erbil and Baghdad over oil exports, in addition to the mechanism of sharing the KRG’s non-oil revenues, has propped up a budgetary conflict between the two sides, leading to years of sanctions on the KRG by the Iraqi government, the latest of which came in May, when Iraqi Finance Minister Taif Sami notified Erbil that the federal government will suspend funding the Region’s civil servant salaries.

Civil servants in the Kurdistan Region received their salaries for June in September, while July and August salaries have yet to be funded by the Iraqi government. The KRG has repeatedly reiterated that they have “more than fulfilled” the obligations relating to finding solutions with Iraqi authorities.