LONDON/ISTANBUL: Pumping of oil along Iraqi Kurdistan's pipeline to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan has been halted since Monday, shipping and industry sources said.

"We have been told that pumping has stopped due to a technical problem," a shipping source said, adding that several tankers were waiting offshore.

Crude flow in the pipeline currently averaged around 450,000 barrels per day (bpd), a source familiar with the matter said, adding that at times it rose as high as 500,000 bpd.

Kirkuk oil exports via Ceyhan had stopped for months last year, when the Baghdad-controlled federal pipeline came under attack by ISIS militants.

Iraq's state oil marketer SOMO resumed exports via Ceyhan late last year through the Kurdish-built pipeline after Iraqi Kurdistan and the central government in Baghdad struck a deal in December.

Under the deal, Kurds committed to export an average of 550,000 bpd from Ceyhan via SOMO in 2015, in return for the reinstatement of budget payments.

Kurdistan's regional government Monday said it had supplied almost 97 percent of the crude oil it agreed to hand over to SOMO during that period.

Loading data from Ceyhan Monday showed exports from northern Iraq are set to reach 400,000 bpd for the first time since the agreement was struck, from an average of 350,000 bpd over the past week and some 275,000-300,000 in February and January.