Kurdistan Region crude trucked to Iran outside official channels during the pipeline shutdown (from 2023 to 2025)

After Turkey shut the Iraq-Turkey pipeline on 25 March 2023 following the ICC arbitration ruling against it, a Reuters investigation published in July 2024 found more than 1,000 tanker trucks were carrying at least 200,000 barrels a day of Kurdistan Region crude across the Iraq-Iran border in off-the-books transactions worth about $200m a month, mainly through the Haji Omaran and Penjwen crossings, with the oil typically refined locally in Iran or shipped onward from Bandar Imam Khomeini or Bandar Abbas. A senior Kurdistan Regional Government Ministry of Natural Resources official told Reuters that of about 375,000 barrels a day the region was producing, roughly 200,000 was being trucked out this way; an Iraqi Oil Ministry spokesman said the trade was not approved by the federal government. An April 2025 Combating Terrorism Center at West Point study similarly identified Kurdistan-based trading hubs as a route through which Iraqi crude reaches Iran and Turkey outside official channels. No individual has been named or charged in either source; both describe a diffuse trade run by unnamed local buyers and traders rather than a single prosecuted scheme.