Iraq’s Oil Ministry said early May that it had started loading a tanker with 2mb of crude oil bound for Egypt, marking the first shipment under a bilateral agreement, Reuters reported.

The one year agreement was reached in April between the two nations, therefore Iraq will sell 12mb of oil to the African country.

According to Ahram Online, the bilateral deal will help Egypt secure its petroleum needs after the country was informed in November 2016 by Saudi national oil company Aramco that oil shipments expected under a prior multi-billion dollar aid deal had been halted indefinitely.

As informed on Energy Voice, the Iraqi Ministry’s statement came just hours after Iraq asked foreign companies and investors to bid for a project to build and operate a 300,000b/d export-oriented refinery in Fao, near the country’s southern city of Basra.