Tens of billions of dollars have been lost since the Kurdistan Region’s oil pipeline exports were halted last year, the oil producing firms said on Saturday, affecting the people and governments of Iraq and the Region.

“It has been more than a year since the pipeline has been closed,” Myles Caggins, spokesperson for the Association of the Petroleum Industry of Kurdistan (APIKUR), told Rudaw in an interview. “And over that time, a whopping, a very big $21 billion has been lost to all people. The companies lose, the Kurdistan Regional Government loses, the people of Iraq lose.”

Oil exports from the Kurdistan Region through the Iraq-Turkey pipeline have been halted since March 2023 after a Paris-based arbitration court ruled in favor of Baghdad against Ankara, saying the latter had breached a 1973 pipeline agreement by allowing Erbil to begin independent oil exports in 2014. 

“We need to get oil flowing again,” Caggins added.

Before the stoppage, Erbil exported around 400,000 barrels per day through Ankara, in addition to some 75,000 barrels of Kirkuk’s oil.

The loss in oil revenues, the Kurdistan Region’s main source of income, has worsened the financial situation and left the government unable to pay its public sector without assistance from Baghdad.

Erbil and Baghdad have held numerous meetings since the halt but to no avail. 

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani told Bloomberg last month that  “there are ongoing talks with the companies and with brothers in the Kurdistan Region. And we hope to reach a solution based on the legal paths.” He called a solution by the end of the year “possible.”