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Iraq restarts oil exports from Kirkuk after 1 year of interruption

The Iraqi government has resumed oil exports from the Kirkuk oil fields one year after the city was seized by federal forces from the autonomous Kurdish administration over dispute about oil payments, revenues and pipeline fees. An agreement has been reached with the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) to export 50,000 bbl/d to 100,000 bbl/d through a pipeline running through the Kurdish territory to Turkey. The revenue from the renewed exports will be collected by the federal government of Iraq.



Earlier in November 2018, the KRG announced an upgrade of its crude oil export pipeline linking its oil fields to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan in Turkey. A new pumping station has been deployed in the Shaikhan area and the pipeline's shipping capacity has been increased from the previous 700,000 bbl/d to 1 mb/d.



Iraq used to export around 300,000 bbl/d of oil from Kirkuk when the city was under Kurdish administration, out of a total export volume of 5 mb/d for Iraq, most of which exported through the Basra terminal in southern Iraq.