Iraq's crude oil exports fell in August compared to July, as OPEC's second-largest producer is reducing supply in an attempt to comply with the OPEC+ production cut pact, which it had largely disregarded in previous deals.
Iraq's crude oil exports in August averaged 2.597 million barrels per day (bpd), down from the previous month, according to early estimates from Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) received by the Shafaq News agency.
In July, Iraq's total crude oil exports stood at 2.763 million bpd, oil ministry data showed.
In August, Iraq's crude oil exports of 2.597 million bpd included 2.5 million bpd of exports from the southern oil ports at Basra and another 97,000 bpd of oil exports from Iraq's northern oilfields through the Turkish port of Ceyhan, SOMO said today.
The average price per barrel of exported Iraqi oil was $43.693.
Iraq's revenues from its oil exports in August-oil income being the majority of Iraqi budget revenues-were at US$3.517 billion, Iraq's oil marketing company said.
Oil revenues are critical to Iraq's budget income, but in recent months OPEC's second-largest oil producer has come under pressure from its fellow OPEC+ partners led by Saudi Arabia to stop cheating on their production quotas and finally start complying with the OPEC+ agreement.
Iraq promised additional cuts of around 400,000 bpd in August in order to compensate for the lack of compliance with the OPEC+ deal in the previous months.
Iraq, which has been the least compliant member of the OPEC+ production cut pact since it was first launched in January 2017, has been promising for months that it would reduce its oil production and fall in line with its quota-something it hasn't done since 2017.
Despite the pledges and the reduced exports, Iraq has yet to comply with the production cut deal.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
More Top Reads From 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