Iraq remains fully committed to its pledges in the OPEC+ agreement as the restart of oil exports from the semi-autonomous Iraqi region of Kurdistan appears imminent.
“The Iraqi oil ministry affirms its full commitment to the OPEC+ agreement,” the ministry said in a press release cited by news agency Rudaw.
Iraq produced 3.9 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil in January, which reflects “Iraq's commitment to the agreed production levels,” according to the statement from the oil ministry.
Iraq, OPEC’s second-largest producer behind Saudi Arabia, has pledged to keep its oil output capped at 4 million bpd, but it has to cut some more over the next months as it had exceeded its quota for most of the previous months.
Iraq has been the biggest overproducer in the OPEC+ alliance, with non-OPEC+’s Russia and Kazakhstan also exceeding their targets in the past years. All three OPEC+ producers have pledged to compensate for previous overproduction with deeper cuts.
Iraq remains committed to its OPEC+ pledges and the group’s “voluntary reduction agreements and the required compensation amounts,” the Iraqi oil ministry said today.
Iraq’s Oil Minister Hayyan Abdul Ghani said on Monday that he hopes exports from Kurdistan could resume in two days, as soon as Iraq receives Turkish approval to ship the crude from the Kurdistan fields via a pipeline to the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean.
Last week, the minister said that Iraq and Kurdistan expect to complete all work to resume oil exports from the semi-autonomous Iraqi region by the end of March, following a two-year hiatus due to a dispute over authority over crude flows.
Oil exports from Kurdistan have now been halted for nearly two years, after they were shut in since March 2023 due to a dispute over who should authorize the Kurdish exports.
The resumption of Kurdistan’s exports would add about 400,000 bpd to oil supply, although it is not clear yet how much of this would be allocated to international markets and how much would be kept for domestic consumption in Iraq.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com