MESOP NEWS : Turkey, Iraq make new oil agreement

Turkey & Iraq inked an agreement to increase Iraq’s daily oil exports via Turkey’s Ceyhan port, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said Jan. 18.

“We have agreed with Baghdad to reach 550,000 barrels per day, or bpd,” he said during a press conference in Baghdad, as reported by Reuters. Yildiz also said around 450,000 bpd of Iraqi oil were currently flowing through Turkey’s Ceyhan port. Iraq’s total oil exports to global markets via Turkey have reached around 37 million barrels since May 2014, according to the Turkish energy ministry.

He said they also discussed the Erbil-Baghdad oil agreement. “Iraq owns $100 billion worth of oil and gas, and this amount can triple as the country’s politics normalize,” he said. During the 17th Turkey-Iraq Joint Economic Commission meeting in Baghdad, the two sides made a range of agreements on energy and trade, including developing the natural gas pipeline used to import gas from Iraq, as Anadolu Agency reported. Another agreement involves Turkish experts training Iraqi technicians on inner-city natural gas distribution. Baghdad will also complete the electricity transmission line between Turkey’s Cizre and Iraq’s Mosul, while promising to support the electricity investments of Turkish private companies, mostly in the province of Basra. Both sides agreed to accelerate the process of opening new border gates and increasing the capacity of Turkey’s Habur customs gate and Iraq’s Ibrahim Khalil border crossing.