Turkey seeks to resume operations of the Iraq-Turkey pipeline at maximum capacity once it resumes flows through Turkey’s Ceyhan, as Reuters reported.

Turkey halted pipeline operations in March 2023 following a ruling by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) that ordered Ankara to pay $1.5 billion in damages to Baghdad, Iraq, for unauthorized exports between 2014 and 2018.

Turkey has expressed readiness to restart the pipeline since late 2023, but as of last month, Ankara had not received confirmation to proceed, according to Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar.

Despite Baghdad’s announcement that the pipeline’s restart was imminent, eight international oil firms operating in Iraq’s Kurdistan region declared that they would not resume oil exports through Ceyhan.

“This pipeline has been ready for 1.5 years already. We want the Turkey-Iraq pipeline, especially the two pipelines of 650 km from our Silopi to Ceyhan, to be used,” Bayraktar said.

“We want some of the oil passing through this line to go to the refinery in Kirikkale and also via ships through Ceyhan to refineries in Turkey or to different refineries in the world so that the capacity of the line can be used at the maximum level,” he added.

Bayraktar also highlighted a planned trade route project between Turkey and Iraq, known as the Development Road Project, which includes the construction of a pipeline reaching the Persian Gulf for the Iraqi oil flows to go to global markets via Turkey.