Iraq oil exports highest since war began, minister says

Iraq's oil exports have averaged two million barrels a day since the start of August, their highest rate since the Iran-US war disrupted the Strait of Hormuz, Oil Minister Bassem Mohammed Khudair said Friday.

Khudair told a press conference that the rate amounted to about 26 million barrels so far this month. He said it was the first time Iraq had reached that daily export level since the crisis began on February 28, after US-Israeli strikes on Iran and Iran's retaliatory blockade of the waterway.

Before the war, Iraq produced about four million barrels per day and exported an average of 105 million barrels a month, mostly from Basra through Hormuz. Ali Nizar, head of Iraq's State Organisation for Marketing of Oil, said in a TV interview last week that Iraq exported 35.5 million to 37 million barrels through Hormuz in July and another seven million barrels by pipeline to Ceyhan in Turkey.

SOMO data put exports through several routes at just over 32 million barrels in May and June, including more than 20 million barrels from Iraq's southern port. The war forced Iraq to halt production at most oil fields as reservoirs filled up, and the Hormuz disruption led it to use tanker trucks through Syria as well as the pipeline to Turkey.