Ceyhan flows continue past the reported expiry of the 1973 Iraq–Turkey pipeline agreement
Kurdpress, citing the Iraqi Oil Ministry, reports the governing treaty formally expired on 27 July. The legal basis for six weeks of subsequent exports has not been reported out in English.
Kurdistan’s exports through Ceyhan resumed on 27 September 2025 after roughly two and a half years, with Kurdistan24 reporting flows from Peshkabour starting at 6:50 a.m., an initial three-month term, and expected field output of 240,000 barrels per day — 190,000 for export, 50,000 for internal use — along a Khurmala–Ceyhan route of nearly 600 km. In late December the deal was extended to March 2026; SOMO head Ali Nazar al-Shatri told Rudaw that “the three sides — the federal government, the Kurdistan Regional Government, and the oil companies — have agreed to renew the agreement.” A one-day interruption on 4–5 March was attributed by Shafaq News to technical faults, sourced to an unnamed North Oil Company official. On 18 March, Baghdad and Erbil agreed terms covering Kirkuk crude through the KRG network; by 6 April, Kurdistan24 reported Basra crude moving the same way.
The legal question sits underneath all of it. Kurdpress, citing the Oil Ministry, reports that the 1973 Iraq–Turkey pipeline agreement formally expired on 27 July 2026, alongside an Iraq–Turkey understanding to resume Ceyhan exports and progress toward a new Basra–Haditha–Kirkuk–Ceyhan line, with the ministry conditioning higher capacity on improved security, full resumption of KRG production and completed logistics. Kurdpress is a partisan outlet and the claim is single-sourced; BOTAŞ, the Turkish Energy Ministry and Reuters energy are the checks, and none has been obtained. The parallel file is salaries. On 9 June, first deputy speaker Adnan Faihan al-Dulaimi urged Baghdad to halt transfers to the KRG until non-oil revenues owed under Budget Law No. 13 are settled, saying the previous government had sent five months of salaries in 2025 without receiving them.
Assessment: The pipeline and the payroll are the same negotiation conducted in two currencies. Erbil’s leverage is barrels; Baghdad’s is the salary transfer, and Dulaimi’s proposed withholding converts an accounting grievance into a monthly instrument of pressure over roughly a million public employees. What to watch is narrow and checkable: whether September salaries actually move, and whether anyone in Ankara or at BOTAŞ confirms the treaty lapse. If exports are running six weeks past the expiry of their governing instrument, every party benefits from silence — which is precisely why the English-language record is empty. The Files did not obtain corroboration and does not assert the expiry as fact.