Basra Oil Company says it can restore production to 3 million barrels within days

BASRA — State-owned Basra Oil Company said Wednesday it can restore oil production to more than 2 million barrels per day within hours and reach 3 million barrels per day within days, as the U.S.-Iran ceasefire opens the prospect of resuming shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.

Company director Bassem Abdul Karim told the Iraqi News Agency that current production stands at around 900,000 barrels per day, limited to supplying refineries, gas stations and power plants. “We are able to restore production to more than 2,000,000 barrels within hours, and to 3 million barrels per day within days,” he said, adding that oil reserves remain available.

Iraq’s production collapsed from around 4.3 million barrels per day before the conflict to as low as 800,000 to 1.3 million barrels per day as the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz cut off its main southern export route. Oil accounts for around 90 percent of government revenue, making the disruption an acute fiscal crisis.

The ceasefire, a temporary two-week agreement, includes steps toward reopening the Strait of Hormuz and is expected to be followed by negotiations mediated by Pakistan. Iraq had been pursuing alternative export routes during the closure — resuming Kirkuk crude exports through the Kurdistan Region pipeline to Turkey’s Ceyhan port at 250,000 barrels per day, and trucking oil through Syria toward the Baniyas port — but those routes offered only marginal relief against the scale of the southern export loss.