Iraq is still waiting for a final answer from Turkey to resume its northern oil exports, which run from the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, Iraq’s oil minister Hayan Abdel-Ghani said on Tuesday.

Turkey told Baghdad a technical team was evaluating whether the pipeline was damaged as a result of the devastating February earthquake, Abdel-Ghani said.

Turkey halted Iraq’s 450,000 barrels per day (bpd) of northern exports through the Iraq-Turkey pipeline on March 25 after an arbitration ruling by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).

The ICC ordered Turkey to pay Baghdad damages of $1.5 billion for unauthorised exports by the Kurdistan Regional Government between 2014 and 2018.

Iraq asked Turkey this month to resume pipeline flows and loading operations at Ceyhan on May 13.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Andrew Mills and Maha El Dahan, writing by Rowena Edwards; Editing by Alex Richardson and Louise Heavens)