ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO) is currently exporting oil from the Kurdistan Region at an average rate of 200,000 barrels per day, Ali Nizar, Director-General of SOMO, told Rudaw on Thursday, expressing hope that exports will increase as production rises.
The export process is proceeding smoothly, Nizar said, stressing that cooperation among all involved sides in Erbil and Baghdad remains strong. “There are no problems at all. All parties are truly cooperating to make the historic [tripartite] agreement a success,” he said.
Baghdad, Erbil, and the international oil companies operating in the Kurdistan Region signed a tripartite agreement on September 22 last year to resume the Region's oil exports. Exports, which had been suspended since March 2023 after Iraq won an arbitration case against Turkey in a Paris-based court, resumed to Turkey’s Ceyhan port on September 27.
In late December, Baghdad, Erbil, and international oil companies agreed to extend the agreement for an additional three months.