Iraq's November oil exports from south up at 3.5 MMbpd
BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) — Oil exports from Iraq's southern ports rose to an average of 3.5 MMbpd in November from 3.35 MMbpd in October, Basra Oil Company Director General Ihsan Abdul Jabbar told Reuters on Friday.
Southern exports are on the rise as Iraq looks to offset the halting of exports from its Kirkuk oilfields in the north in mid-October after Baghdad government forces dislodged Kurdish Peshmerga fighters from the area.
A southern export figure of 3.9 MMbpd released by the oil ministry on Thursday, the highest ever, referred just to output on Nov. 29, Abdul Jabbar said.
"The November average was 3.5 MMbpd," he said.
The Iraqi government's November revenues from oil exports were at over $6 B, an oil ministry spokesman later said in a statement, with a total of over 105 MMbbl sold. The average price per barrel sold was $57.194, the spokesman said.
Southern exports are shipped by state-owned Basra Oil and sold by state oil marketer SOMO on behalf of the central government.
SOMO is also in charge of selling crude from Kirkuk but there were no exports from there in October or November, the oil ministry said.
The Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq sells crude from its own fields through a pipeline to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.
Iraq is OPEC's second-largest producer after Saudi Arabia with an output capacity of 4.8 MMbpd which Baghdad aims to increase to 5 MMbpd.
Actual production is less than 4.5 MMbpd in line with an agreement among oil exporting nations to curb output in order to support crude prices and reduce global oil inventories.
Reporting by Aref Mohammed; Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Jason Neely and Jane Merriman
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