Iraqi oil exports reached 2.8 million barrels per day (bpd) for the month of February, a sharp increase from January’s figures, according to Reuters.
The completion of an upgrade project at the southern port of Basra saw exports rise from 2.228 million bpd in January to 2.8 million bpd in February.
The rise in production will go some way to restoring confidence in Iraq’s ability to dramatically increase production.
Iraq’s deputy prime minister for energy Hussain al-Shahristani, has recently claimed that Iraq wants to increase its production figures to a staggering 9 million bpd by 2020.
Iraq set an export target of 3.4 million bpd for 2014, including 400,000 bpd from the autonomous Kurdistan region, implying production of 4 million bpd, including oil used domestically.
Production in February reached 3.5 million bpd, and Shahristani blamed the shortfall on an ongoing dispute with Kurdistan region, who are at odds with the Iraqi central government over oil rights and stopped exporting via the national network more than a year ago.
Current Kurdish production capacity stands below 400,000 bpd, and around one third of that is refined locally.
Of the 2.8 million bpd exported in February, 2.5 million came from Basra, Shahristani said. The rest was exported from the northern Kirkuk oilfields via a pipeline to Turkey that has repeatedly been sabotaged.
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