Turkiye and Iraq sign one year deal to keep 750,000 bpd flowing through Kirkuk to Ceyhan pipeline

Turkish state firm BOTAS and Iraq's state oil companies SOMO and NOC signed a one year agreement on Saturday, 1 August 2026, to keep crude flowing through the Kirkuk to Ceyhan pipeline. Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said the transit arrangement covers a daily capacity of 750,000 barrels, and that talks toward a longer term deal continue. The decades old bilateral arrangement between the two countries had lapsed on Monday the previous week.

The pipeline's maximum capacity is about 1.5 million barrels per day, but Turkish data show it currently carries only around 170,000 bpd, largely from fields in Iraq's Kurdistan region. Iraq's prime minister called the deal an important strategic milestone and said the two governments would work toward a framework agreement covering oil, electricity and water resources.

The route matters because Iran's effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz earlier this year forced Baghdad to look for alternative export routes. According to Al Jazeera, Iraqi oil exports collapsed by more than 80 percent in the weeks after the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran in late February, with monthly oil revenues falling from around $6 billion to under $2 billion.