After experiencing the turmoil of war, the Iraqi oil industry has long been plagued by unstable production capacity and hindered exports. As the regional situation gradually eases, the country's oil field operations are gradually returning to the right track, and the recovery process of oil production capacity and exports continues to advance. Various plans for resuming production are also being implemented one after another.

Iraq plans to complete the recovery of production capacity in the southern oil fields within the next one to two months, increasing daily oil production to over 3 million barrels. The daily oil export volume of Iraq is about 3.6 million barrels, and before the outbreak of the Iran Iraq War, the daily oil export scale of the southern port of Basra in the country could reach 3.4 million barrels.

War impedes exports

Similar to other Gulf oil producing countries, Iraq's oil revenue has significantly decreased due to the actual suspension of operations in the Strait of Hormuz caused by the US Iraq War.

Before the war disrupted the layout of oil exports, Iraq's fuel oil was mainly transported to the outside world through the Khor Zubair port in the Gulf region. But due to the impact of the war, the passage through the Strait of Hormuz was interrupted, and domestic oil storage facilities gradually became saturated. Iraq had to open up a new oil export channel.

Progress in Capacity Recovery

Iraqi Oil Ministry spokesperson Salim Likabi stated that there are differences in the production capacity and geological conditions of various oil fields in the country, so it is currently impossible to determine the specific time to restore to the previous export scale.

He further explained that the current core task of the Iraqi Ministry of Oil is to prioritize the resumption of associated gas, liquefied gas, and condensate related oil field extraction operations. At the same time, the recovery progress of oil export capacity and tanker loading and unloading operations will be synchronized with the pace of oil field production recovery.

Earlier, Iraqi oil officials revealed to Reuters that with more oil tankers entering the country's ports to load crude oil, the daily production of crude oil in southern Iraq's oil fields has increased by 250000 barrels, and the current daily production is about 1.75 million barrels. Officials added that Iraq plans to continue increasing production capacity in the short term, raising the daily crude oil output of southern oil fields to 2 million barrels.Editor/Gong Ziwei