Iraq Oil Exports Rise By 8 Percent In May

Single Point Mooring system off Iraq Loading Maersk Tanker in 2012, image courtesy Leighton Offshore

By Raheem Salman

BAGHDAD, June 1 (Reuters) – Oil exports from Iraq rose by 8 percent in May and a new floating terminal was inaugurated that will expand shipping capacity from the country’s southern ports by 800,000 barrels per day (bpd), the oil ministry said on Sunday.

The May export average of 2.582 million bpd was up from 2.39 million bpd in April, oil ministry spokesman Asim Jihad said in a text message. That was below a target of 3.4 million bpd for 2014

The target includes 400,000 bpd from Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, which has not exported any oil via state infrastructure for more than one year due to a dispute over resources with Baghdad.

Export growth has also been held up by damage to Iraq’s northern pipeline, which was blown up by insurgents in early March and has been idled ever since.

The new floating Single Point Mooring (SPM) platform in the Gulf will help boost exports from the South, where the bulk of Iraq’s crude is produced and shipped abroad.

The average price of a barrel of Iraqi oil in May was $100.80, generating revenues of $8.07 billion, oil ministry spokesman Asim Jihad told Reuters via text message. (Reporting by Raheem Salman; Writing by Isabel Coles; editing by Jane Baird and Cynthia Osterman)

(c) 2014 Thomson Reuters, All Rights Reserved

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