Iraq's oil export revenues hit $9 billion in August as the average crude price jumped by more than $6.50 per barrel last month compared to July, according to data from the Iraqi Ministry of Oil cited by Iraqi News.
The average price per barrel of oil was $84.78 in August, compared to just over $78 in July.
Iraq exported in August a total of 106.12 million barrels of oil, per data from the State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO).
The oil export revenues in August exceeded the monthly revenues from each of the previous months this year when monthly revenues didn't exceed $8 billion.
International crude oil prices rose in August as signs started to emerge that the global market is tightening amid OPEC+ and Saudi Arabia's production cuts, while the chances of a 'soft landing' for the U.S. economy rose. Tighter markets and peak summer fuel demand pushed oil prices to a 10-month high earlier in September, when Brent Crude broke above $95 per barrel and the U.S. benchmark, WTI Crude, topped $90 a barrel.
Iraq, OPEC's second-largest producer after Saudi Arabia, is currently exporting oil only via its southern oil export terminals. Around 450,000 barrels per day (bpd) of exports from the northern fields and from the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan continue to be shut in due to a dispute with Turkey over the Iraqi oil exports via the Iraq-Turkey pipeline and Turkey's port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean.
Kurdistan's crude oil exports were halted on March 25 by the federal government of Iraq. The halt came after the International Chamber of Commerce ruled in favor of Iraq against Turkey in a dispute over crude flows from Kurdistan.
The parties have been discussing a restart of the oil flows for months but have been plagued with repeated delays-some due to technical problems and others due to political ones.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More