Türkiye demands Iraq guarantee “full use” of the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline through a new agreement.
Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar confirmed on Tuesday that his country demands that the proposed new agreement with Iraq include a “mechanism ensuring full use” of the Kirkuk-Ceyhan oil pipeline, as part of ongoing negotiations to expand the bilateral agreement in the energy sector.
Bayraktar noted, in statements following the cabinet meeting, that the pipeline’s capacity is approximately 1.5 million barrels per day, but “even during operational times, it has not been used at full capacity.”
The pipeline has been inactive since 2023, following an arbitration ruling that ordered Türkiye to pay $1.5 billion to Baghdad for unauthorized oil exports between 2014 and 2018, a ruling Ankara is still appealing.
Ankara stated that the decades-old agreement will expire in July 2026, and it proposes extending it to include cooperation in the fields of gas, electricity, and petrochemicals, in addition to oil.
The Turkish minister did not rule out the possibility of extending the pipeline to southern Iraq, noting that “the path to full capacity necessarily passes through the south.”
Bayraktar linked this to the “Development Road” project, which connects Basra to the Turkish border and then to Europe, for which initial Iraqi funding was allocated in 2023.
shafaq.com