The export availability of crude oil from Iraq’s semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan continues to increase after the pipeline from northern Iraq to the Turkish Mediterranean coast resumed flows on Saturday, one of the foreign companies operating in Kurdistan said on Monday.
UK-listed Gulf Keystone Petroleum confirmed that crude oil exports from its operated Shaikan field in Kurdistan via the Iraq-Türkiye Pipeline commenced on Saturday, September 27, 2025.
“Export volumes are expected to reach full capacity in the next few days based on the continued ramp up of pipeline availability,” Gulf Keystone added.
Gulf Keystone is one of eight companies that last week signed agreements with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Federal Government of Iraq to enable the restart of international crude exports from Kurdistan.
This agreement paved to way to the restart of exports from Kurdistan, which were halted for two and a half years, after they were shut in in March 2023 due to a dispute over who should authorize the Kurdish exports.
The federal government in Baghdad and the regional Kurdish government in Erbil squabbled for more than two years over who should be responsible for the oil exports and the subsequent revenue distribution.
Under the agreement, hailed as historic by Iraq’s federal government, KRG will deliver the crude to Iraqi state marketing company SOMO. Kurdistan is also entitled to keep 50,000 barrels per day (bpd) to use for local consumption.
The companies will deliver 180,000 to 190,000 bpd to the Ministry of Oil and reserve 50,000 bpd for the operation of domestic refineries, Iraq’s Oil Minister Hayyan Abdul Ghani told the Iraqi News Agency (INA) this weekend.
“There are clear indications from the Ministry of Oil, the North Oil Company complexes, the technical department at the ministry’s headquarters, and the Oil Marketing Company that there is an increase in the levels of oil reaching the tanks of the port of Ceyhan,” INA quoted Abdul Ghani as saying.
The restart of Kurdistan’s crude exports weighed on oil prices, which dipped by 2% early on Monday.
