Turkey and Iraq have signed a one-year agreement to maintain crude oil flows through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, replacing a decades-old bilateral arrangement that expired last week. Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said the new deal, signed Saturday in Ankara, covers a daily capacity of 750,000 barrels.
The agreement was struck between Turkish state firm BOTAS and Iraq's state oil companies SOMO and NOC. Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi described the deal as an important strategic milestone. The signing came four days after al-Zaidi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met in Ankara, where they agreed to broaden cooperation in energy, trade and transport.
The pipeline has a maximum capacity of roughly 1.5 million barrels per day but currently carries only about 170,000 bpd, according to Turkish data. Ankara is seeking to fully utilise the line and potentially extend it to southern Iraqi oilfields.