Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization, or SOMO, confirmed Sunday South Korea refiner SK Energy (096770.SE) had started lifting Iraqi Basra Light crude oil since January this year after a year-long suspension.
"We have been supplying SK Energy with 30,000 barrels a day in accordance with a contract we signed with the company," head of SOMO Falah Alamri told Dow Jones Newswires by telephone from Baghdad.
South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported last week that SK Energy is still in talks with the Iraqi government to resume imports of oil from Iraq.
Iraq suspended its crude oil sales to South Korea's largest refiner in January last year when it signed, along with a consortium, a contract to develop the Bazian oil filed in Kurdistan, which is locked in a major struggle with Iraq's central government in Baghdad for control of the country's massive oil resources.
Resumption of Iraqi crude oil exports to SK Energy came after the firm had expressed willingness to cancel an oil deal with the Kurdistan Regional Government in the hope of resuming imports of Iraqi oil.