ISTANBUL(RAHNUMA): Turkiye and Iraq signed a one-year agreement on maintaining use of the crude oil pipeline between the two countries, Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said on Saturday.
The agreement extended a decades-long bilateral arrangement that expired on Monday which allows the operation of Baghdad’s only functioning export pipeline, the Iraq-Turkiye Pipeline (ITP).
“While our efforts continue toward a new long-term agreement for this pipeline… we have implemented this transit arrangement covering a daily capacity of 750,000 barrels,” the minister said on X.
Bayraktar said he had a “productive” meeting in Ankara with Iraq’s oil minister and his delegation and they signed the one-year deal between Turkish state energy company BOTAS and Iraq’s state oil companies SOMO and NOC.
The extension allows time for talks on a more comprehensive agreement. Turkiye wants the pipeline, with a capacity of 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd), to be fully utilized and possibly extended to southern Iraqi oil fields.
The pipeline to the Turkish port of Ceyhan currently carries around 170,000 bpd, according to Turkish data.
