Following the US-Iran agreement aimed at the full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, Iraq has asked operators of its five major oil fields to raise production to pre-war levels, targeting an output exceeding 3 million barrels per day.
According to documents seen by the media, Iraq’s state-owned Basra Oil Company has requested the five oil fields to increase production to maximum available capacity.
June 21 – Following the US-Iran agreement aimed at the full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, Iraq has asked operators of its five major oil fields to raise production to pre-war levels, targeting an output exceeding 3 million barrels per day.
According to a document dated June 19 seen by the media, Iraq’s state-owned Basra Oil Company has requested the operators of the Rumaila, West Qurna-1, West Qurna-2, Zubair, and Artawi oil fields to increase production to maximum available capacity.
Salim Al-Rikabi, spokesman for the Iraqi Ministry of Oil, stated that the restoration of oil production would be gradual, depending on operational conditions and the arrangement of tanker loading by buyers.
Ali Nizar, head of Iraq’s State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO), said in an interview that two vessels are currently loading at the country’s southern terminals, but more vessels need to enter the Strait of Hormuz to sustain production increases.
Iraq is the second-largest oil producer in OPEC, after Saudi Arabia. Before the US-Iran war, production from Iraq’s main southern oil fields, where most of the country’s crude oil is produced and exported, stood at approximately 4.3 million barrels per day.
After the US-Iran war nearly completely disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, Iraq’s oil exports plunged. According to official figures released last month, Iraq exported 10 million barrels of crude oil through the Strait of Hormuz in April, far below the pre-war level of 93 million barrels.
Unlike a few neighboring countries, such as Saudi Arabia, which exported large volumes of crude via the East-West pipeline during the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Iraq relies almost entirely on the Strait of Hormuz for its crude oil exports, with very limited overland pipeline capacity.
Currently, the country is also actively exploring multiple crude oil export routes through Syria and Turkey to reduce its dependence on the Strait of Hormuz.
According to a senior industry executive, production from the southern main oil-producing region, where the five oil fields are located, has recovered to 1.5 million barrels per day in recent days.
Al-Rikabi stated that the operators of the oil fields requested to increase production have already begun ramping up output. The current focus is on fields with abundant associated gas reserves, in order to support local power generation and civilian gas demand.
