Oil exports back above 3.4 million barrels a day, minister says

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s oil exports have risen to more than 3.4 million barrels a day since the start of October, back to prewar levels, from an average of 3 million in September, Oil Minister Basim Mohammed Khudair al-Abadi said Monday.

Iraq is exporting through three routes, the Strait of Hormuz, Turkey’s Ceyhan port and tanker trucks through Syria, Abadi told the state-run Iraqi News Agency, and its crude is going to Europe, Asia and the Americas. The ministry was working to expand export capacity to raise revenue and fund state spending, he said.

The ministry had said exports averaged about 2.6 million barrels a day in the first three weeks of September, against 3.3 million to 3.5 million before shipping through the strait was disrupted in March. Flows through the Ceyhan pipeline are about 200,000 to 230,000 barrels a day, oil expert Ziad al-Hashimi said this month, meaning most exports are still leaving through Hormuz. Government spokesperson Haider al-Aboudi said on Oct. 11 that Iraq’s economy was “under blockade” and that no party had granted an exemption for its oil.

Exports fell from more than 99 million barrels in February to 18.6 million in March, cutting monthly revenue from more than $6.8 billion to about $1.95 billion, Oil Ministry figures show, and Abadi said in July that monthly revenue had dropped to about $1.5 billion, against $7 billion to $8 billion before the war. Oil provides more than 90% of government revenue. Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said last week that the war had cost Iraq an estimated $60 billion. Iraq has kept Kirkuk crude flowing through Ceyhan while supplies to Jordan have been suspended since the start of the year, a suspension the ministry attributes to a shortage of Kirkuk light crude.