State Oil Marketing Organization

Baghdad cut the budget payments in January 2014 over the semi-autonomous region's plans to export its oil through Turkey but reinstated them in December after the Kurds agreed to export an average of 550,000 barrels per day (bpd) from Ceyhan via Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) in 2015.

Iraq's Kurdistan region said on March 9 it was on track to keep its side of an oil export deal reached with the federal government in December and urged Baghdad to uphold its own end of the bargain.

Deals regarding Iraqi oil were some of the most significant developments in the last year for Turkey's economy.

Turkey’s sole oil refiner Tüpraş will begin purchasing crude oil from northern Iraq shipped by pipeline and sold by the Iraqi state’s Oil Marketing Company (SOMO), Deputy General Manager Hasan Tan said on Nov. 21.

The oil will be transported to the Turkish Mediterranean port town of Ceyhan, Tan told reporters on the sidelines of an energy conference.

Turkey has insisted that the export of Kurdish Iraqi oil to the world is Iraq’s internal business, downplaying opposition from Baghdad, which has accused Turkey of worsening the row over who controls Iraq’s resources.