Iraq exported 10m barrels oil through Strait of Hormuz

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19-05-2026

BAGHDAD/ LONDON: Iraq exported 10 million barrels of oil via the Strait of Hormuz in April, down from about 93 million barrels monthly before the Iran war, the country’s new oil minister, Basim Mohammed, ‌said at a press conference on Saturday.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz due to the Iran war has curtailed oil exports from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait and Iraq, sending prices sharply higher.

“Exports through the Strait of Hormuz are low and depend on the arrival of oil tankers, which are not entering because of ⁠insurance”, he said in his first press conference after taking office.

Iraq is currently producing 1.4 million barrels per day.

The country’s crude exports through the Kirkuk–Ceyhan oil pipeline resumed in March, after Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government agreed on restarting flows.

“We export 200,000 barrels through (Turkish) Ceyhan port, and we have a plan to increase it to 500,000 barrels”, Mohammed said.

Push to boost production, export

Baghdad is also in talks with Ankara on a new cooperation agreement covering upstream and downstream projects, expanding on a previous deal that was limited to crude exports, ‌Mohammed ⁠said.

Iraq is in negotiations with US companies, including Chevron, ExxonMobil and Halliburton, on developing oil and gas projects, Mohammed said, urging the firms to sign contracts as soon as possible to help secure significant revenues for Iraq.

Iraq plans to engage with OPEC to boost the country’s production and export capacity, ⁠the minister said, adding that Baghdad aims to reach a production capacity of 5 million barrels per day through this dialogue.

“We have a dialogue with OPEC to increase Iraq’s export capacity. When exports increase ⁠and the ceiling opens up with OPEC, we will bring in significant financial revenues for Iraq,” he added.

Iraq has no intention of leaving OPEC or OPEC+ and supports ⁠a strong organization to ensure stable and acceptable oil prices, two Iraqi oil officials told media in April after the United Arab Emirates decided to leave the group.

Last week, OPEC oil output dropped further in April to the lowest in more than two decades, a media survey found, as the US-Israeli war with Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz and forced export cuts.

Crude output by the 12-member Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in April fell by 830,000 barrels per day month-on-month to 20.04 million bpd, the survey found. March’s figure was revised 700,000 bpd lower due to a change in the Saudi estimate.

Eight members of the OPEC+ producer group, which includes OPEC plus allies including Russia, had agreed to resume oil production hikes in April, although the outbreak of the Iran war on February 28 and effective Hormuz closure made it impossible to deliver on the agreement.

Kuwait experienced the group’s biggest drop in production in April, reflecting a whole month of disruption to exports, a survey found.

Saudi Arabia and Iraq also had further declines, although the United Arab Emirates was the only Gulf member able to increase production. Like Saudi Arabia, the UAE has an export route bypassing Hormuz and tanker data shows higher UAE exports in April. April’s output is the lowest by OPEC since at least 2000, excluding membership changes since then according to a surveys, and is significantly below the levels reached during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 when demand collapsed. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)