Iraq will double exports from its northern Kirkuk oil fields to 300,000 barrels a day over the next few weeks, Bloomberg has reported.
Kirkuk, which currently exports about 150,000 barrels a day, will boost shipments to 250,000 barrels a day and then to 300,000 “in the coming few weeks,” Fouad Hussein, a member of the Kirkuk provincial council’s oil and gas committee, said.
Hussein also told the business news website that pipeline infrastructure between fields in the region is to be upgraded.
Iraq will continue to boost crude oil output from its fields in the south, according to Hussein.
The country exported 2.94mn barrels a day in December, the most since the 1980s.
The exports, pumped mostly from fields in southern Iraq, included 5.579mn barrels from Kirkuk in that month.
Iraq’s plans for raising exports and production come at a time of supply glut and weak demand as the oil price fell to $47.43 on Tuesday- the lowest it has been in six years.
Iraq’s Oil Ministry is adding pipelines to connect oil fields in Kirkuk and linking them with the Kurdish region’s export pipeline to Turkey, Hussein said.
State-owned Missan Oil Co. plans to boost its production to 1mn barrels a day in 2017 from an average output of 257,000 barrels a day in 2014, according to an e-mailed statement from Director-General Adnan Sajet.
Output exceeded 93mn barrels in 2014, up 10mn barrels from the previous year, he told Bloomberg.
Iraq’s government also awarded a contract to more than double the capacity of the southern Basra oil refinery to 300,000 barrels a day, according to an e-mailed statement from the office of Deputy Prime Minister Rowsch Nuri Shaways.
Data compiled by Bloomberg claims the refinery can currently process about 140,000 barrels a day.
