Iraq's crude oil production rose to its highest level in 13 months in July-to 4.46 million bpd, Platts quoted the Iraqi State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) as saying on Thursday.
Since the fourth quarter of 2017, Iraq has been consistently reporting to OPEC that its production was 4.36 million bpd each month, according to OPEC's Monthly Oil Market Report.
According to OPEC's secondary sources in the July MOMR, Iraq's oil production jumped by 71,500 bpd in June over May, to 4.533 million bpd. This was the second largest increase within the cartel for June, after the Saudi production jump of 405,400 bpd, according to the secondary sources-the ones that OPEC uses for calculating quotas and compliance. OPEC's August MOMR with data for July is due out on Monday, August 13.
According to the latest S&P Global Platts survey, Iraq's oil production in July was 4.57 million bpd, up by 30,000 bpd from June, and around 110,000 bpd above the production that Iraq has reported.
All production numbers include production from the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government.
In a document sent to Platts, Iraq also said that its crude oil exports in July hit their highest level since January 2017-at 3.875 million bpd, up by 25,000 bpd from June.
At the beginning of this month, Iraq's oil ministry said that the country exported 3.543 million bpd of crude oil from its southern ports in July, slightly up from the June exports of 3.521 million bpd.
According to Platts, the 3.543 million bpd exports from the terminals in the Gulf leave the Kurdish exports via pipeline to the Ceyhan port on the Turkish Mediterranean coast at around 242,000 bpd.
The Kurdistan government, for its part, exported 316,129 bpd of crude oil in July, according to figures from sources at Ceyhan that Platts has obtained. This export figure is some 74,000 bpd above SOMO's estimate of Kurdish oil exports.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More