Iraq says close to deal with producers, KRG on Kurdish oil exports

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Baghdad will reach an agreement with international oil companies and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in the coming days to resume Kurdish oil exports, the federal Oil Ministry's undersecretary for extraction affairs told Rudaw on Saturday.

“We, God willing, in the coming days will reach an agreement with the companies and the Region. This dialogue is being managed by the Region - actually with the companies, since the contracts are signed between the Region as the first party and the companies,” Basim Mohammed Khudair said on the sidelines of an energy forum in Baghdad. 

“The federal government and the Ministry of Oil have provided all facilitations and all procedures to resume oil exports as quickly as possible,” he added. 

Iraqi officials have made similar optimistic remarks in the past, but they have yet to reach a final deal more than two years after exports were halted following a court ruling that Turkey was in violation of a 1973 pipeline agreement when it allowed the KRG to independently export oil beginning in 2014.

The Association of the Petroleum Industry of Kurdistan (APIKUR), an umbrella group of eight international oil firms operating in the Kurdistan Region, has said that it will not resume exports unless Baghdad provides written guarantees of the payment of “oil delivered but not paid between October 2022 and March 2023.”

Khudair said on Saturday that the oil companies "have many demands," but did not go into detail.

The Iraqi parliament in early February approved amendments to the federal budget law, authorizing a $16 per barrel production and transport fee for Erbil and international oil companies. This move was seen as crucial to restarting Kurdish oil exports.