Iraq’s oil exports from its southern terminals are up this month, holding close to a record high in October, Reuters reported.
Exports from Iraq’s southern terminals have averaged 2.55mn barrels per day (bpd), according to shipping data for the first 23 days of October tracked by Reuters. So far this month oil exports have been slightly up from the average of 2.54mn bpd during all of September and are headed towards May’s average of 2.58mn bpd, which was the highest since at least 2003.
Crude oil prices have fallen steeply from June’s high to a four-year low of $82.6, while supply has remained ample. This has in trun reduced OPEC’s income from oil exports.Â
“So far no country has said it is willing to cut,” said Carsten Fritsch, analyst at Commerzbank in Frankfurt. “So it will be difficult for OPEC to find an agreement overall.”
Iraq has been expanding oil production in the south since Western companies signed a series of service contracts with Baghdad in 2010, and boosted export capacity.
Total exports from Iraq’s northern and southern ports hit a record 2.8mn bpd in February. Northern exports of Kirkuk crude have been shut since 2nd March after an attacks on a pipeline to Turkey, keeping total exports below their potential.
Iraq’s Kurdistan region exported 180,000 bpd in September independently of Baghdad via Turkey’s Ceyhan port, according to the International Energy Agency. The oil exports may have reached 200,000 bpd in October.
IS militants seized some oilfields in northern Iraq in June with output of around 28,000 bpd. The militant group was producing about 50,000 to 60,000 bpd from oilfields it controls in both Syria and Iraq prior to the start of U.S.-led air strikes.
The total revenue of IS is worth about $2mn a day, as the oil is sold on the black market at a much lower price compared to the Brent- between $25 to $60 a barrel.Â
