Iraqi Oil Minister Jabar al-Luaibi has said that a deal signed with Iran to swap up to 60,000 barrels a day (b/d) of crude produced from the northern Iraqi Kirkuk oilfield for Iranian oil is for one year and subject to renewal, according to a Reuters report.

The agreement signed on Friday by the two Opec countries calls for Iran to deliver to Iraq’s southern ports, on the Gulf, “oil of the same characteristics and in the same quantities” as those it would receive from Kirkuk.

The deal in effect allows Iraq to resume sales of Kirkuk crude, which has been halted since Iraqi forces took back control of the fields from the Kurdish forces in October.

Between 30,000 and 60,000 b/d of Kirkuk crude will be delivered by tanker trucks to the border area of Kermanshah, where Iran has a refinery.

Luaibi also said that the construction of an oil pipeline from Kirkuk to the Turkish port of Ceyhan will take one year to build. It will replace an old, badly damaged section of the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline. It will start from the nearby city of Baiji and run to the Fish-Khabur border area with Turkey.

Iraq has asked BP to help increase output from Kirkuk oilfield to more than 700,000 barrels per day. BP has provided technical assistance in the past to the Iraqi state-owned North Oil Company to aid the redevelopment of the Kirkuk field.

Kirkuk is one of the biggest and oldest oilfields in the Middle East, still estimated to contain around 9 billion barrels of recoverable oil, according to BP.