Iran’s ministry of petroleum announced that road tankers carrying oil from Iraq’s Northern city of Kirkuk had crossed the Iranian border and were already delivering oil to reserves in the Western Province of Ilam.
“By setting up relevant facilities and a pumping house, Iraqi’s Kirkuk crude oil will be pumped from Darresh Shahr to Tang Fanni and then to Kermanshah, Shazand, Tehran and Tabriz refineries,” Managing Director of Iranian Oil Pipelines and Telecommunications Company (IOPTC) Abbasali Jafarinasab said.
Under the swap deal inked between Iran and Iraq, Iraqi crude oil will be transported by tanker trucks to Iran to supply a part of feedstock of the refineries.
The swap deal between Iran and Iraq was agreed at the end of 2017, under which Iraq is about to truck 60,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil to Iran. Iraq would cover all transport costs.
Iran will accordingly deliver equal volumes with the same quality to Iraq’s clients through its Kharg terminal in the Persian Gulf.
The project is expected to upend Iraq’s oil export route from Kirkuk via Turkey and the Mediterranean. Exports through the route were halted last year following a rise in tensions between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government that hosts the pipeline to Turkey.
