July 12, 2025 Baghdad - Qusay Munther Oil Minister Hayan Abdul Ghani revealed that a near-final agreement has been reached with the Kurdistan Region to resume oil exports via the Turkish port of Ceyhan. He noted that negotiations have reached their final stages after resolving most of the contentious issues between the two parties, with the exception of the issue of domestic consumption, which remains under discussion.
Abdul Ghani said in a statement yesterday that “the budget specified quantities of crude oil that must be delivered from the Kurdistan Regional Government to the federal government for export. It stipulated the delivery of 400,000 barrels per day to the federal government, specifically to the State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO), for export via the Iraqi-Turkish pipeline.” ]
He stressed that “during this period, intensive talks and negotiations took place to implement this initial agreement or what was stipulated in the budget law.
Based on these negotiations, the budget law was amended to expedite the implementation of the agreement and deliver the quantities according to the amendments. $16 was set for each barrel produced by the region as an advance payment, with the appointment of a consulting company within a clear scope of work to price the production of a barrel of oil in each field separately.”
He pointed out that “this agreement and amendment were presented to the regional government and received real approval from all parties,” indicating that “there are some issues that have hindered the implementation of this agreement, including the issue of the budget law and within the audit agreements between the Financial Supervision Bureaus in the federal and regional governments, where it was agreed to set the amount of refining or internal consumption at 46 thousand barrels per day, but the region is currently demanding that this amount be 65 thousand, which constitutes a violation of the budget law.”
Stressing that (almost all paragraphs were agreed upon except for this paragraph, and we hope that in the final stages the region will agree to the amount that was agreed upon within the Financial Supervision Bureau in the federal government and the region with the aim of implementing this agreement),
Abdul Ghani explained that (from our side as the federal government, the Turkish side and the Kurdish side were informed of our readiness to receive and export this amount, and I was in a meeting with the Turkish Minister of Energy, who confirmed that Ankara is ready to resume the process of exporting oil through the Iraqi-Turkish pipeline towards Ceyhan, but we are waiting for the brothers in the region to deliver this amount of oil so that it can be exported).
He continued, saying, "The federal government is now losing approximately 300,000 barrels per day, because the amount produced by the region is counted as part of Iraq's OPEC quota, even though the federal government does not benefit from this amount." On a related note, Iraq ranked 12th globally in proven natural gas reserves for 2025, according to the American magazine.
The magazine said in a report that (Russia, Iran and Qatar combined possess 51 percent of the world's proven natural gas reserves, totaling about 3.7 quadrillion cubic feet out of 7.3 quadrillion cubic feet available worldwide), and pointed out that (Iraq ranked 12th globally in proven natural gas reserves this year, amounting to 111 billion and 522 million cubic feet, which is equal to 1.61 percent of the world's reserves), adding that (Russia ranked first globally in proven natural gas reserves, amounting to 1 trillion and 688 billion and 228 million cubic feet, followed by Iran in second place with 1 trillion and 183 billion and 19 million cubic feet, and Qatar came in third with 850 billion and 98 million cubic feet).
The report continued, "The United States of America came in fourth place with the largest proven natural gas reserves, 322 billion and 234 million cubic feet, and Saudi Arabia came in fifth place with 303 billion and 284 million cubic feet of natural gas." LINK
