Iraq has initialed a deal with Turkey to extend for 12 years the use of the main pipeline linking its northern oilfields to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, the oil ministry said on Thursday. The renewal of the existing deal, which ran out in March, was the result of lengthy negotiations - Turkey had been seeking an extension of between 15 and 20 years, its Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said before the agreement's expiry. “The agreement was signed (on Wednesday) by Iraqi Deputy Oil Minister Abdul Karim Luaibi and Turkish Energy Ministry Deputy Undersecretary Yusuf Yazar,” oil ministry spokesman Assem Jihad said. “It is hoped that the final signature will take place between the Iraqi oil minister (Hussein Al-Shahristani) and the Turkish energy minister in Baghdad within the coming days,” he added. The 970-kilometer (600-mile) pipeline runs from Iraq's northern oil hub of Kirkuk to Ceyhan, from where the crude is shipped to world markets by tanker. The twin conduit, first inaugurated in 1976, carried 167.6 million barrels of oil last year, according to Turkish statistics. In April, the pipeline was bombed in Al-Hadhar south of the main northern Iraqi city of Mosul. The pipeline was also sabotaged by insurgents inside Iraq on three separate occasions last October and November. Last month, a China-led consortium has signed an oil deal with Iraq to develop a prized cluster of three oilfields in the country's south. The state-run China National Offshore Oil Corp. and its partner, the state-run Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO), will develop the Missan oilfields. The Iraqi government will earn $2.30 per barrel produced under the 20-year deal. The consortium plans to increase the fields' output to 450,000 barrels a day in six years from Missan's current daily production of nearly 100,000 barrels. The Missan cluster has a reserve of more than 2.6 billion barrels of oil. It was among eight oil and gas fields Iraq offered last June during the first bidding round in the three decades since Saddam Hussein nationalized the oil sector. The deal covers the fields of Buzurgan, Fekke and Abu Ghraib.
