Iraq receives $3.1 billion in September oil sales: ministry

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The Iraqi Ministry of Oil has announced preliminary statistics for September’s oil exports and revenues,  with revenues standing at over three billion dollars. 

More than 78 million barrels of crude oil were exported in September, bringing in $3.1 billion in revenues, the ministry announced on Thursday.

A total of 75 million barrels came from oil fields in central and southern Iraq, with three million travelling to Turkey through Kirkuk, and over 250,000 exported to Jordan. 

In August, Iraq exported an average of 2.597 million barrels per day (bpd), bringing in $3.517 billion in revenue, the oil ministry announced on Tuesday. The average price per barrel was $40.40.

Iraq has almost exclusively relied on oil revenues since the US invasion in 2003. In June, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi stated that the country currently gets 94.7 percent of its income from oil sales.  

A drop in oil prices as a result of the coronavirus pandemic has plunged the country further into economic strife. 

To bolster recovering oil prices, members of the Saudi Arabia-led Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies agreed in mid-April to cut production for May and June. On June 6, they extended the cuts for another month.

Iraq angered its OPEC counterparts when it initially failed to meet the agreed reduced quota of 3.592 million bpd in May. Baghdad promised to compensate for the overproduction by making significant cuts in July, August, and September.

The drop in oil prices pushed Finance Minister Ali Allawi to scrap plans for a 2020 budget, he told state media in June. The government is now pushing for legislation to allow Baghdad to seek loans to keep the country afloat.  

Oil has also been a major point of contention between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil. The KRG started exporting its oil independently of Baghdad via its own pipeline to Ceyhan in 2013.

The independent oil sales infuriated the Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki, which cut the Kurdistan Region’s share of the federal budget from 17 percent to zero in 2014.

Erbil says it is entitled to its 12.67% share of federal funds, as stipulated by Iraq’s 2019 budget law, while Baghdad says the KRG has not lived up to its end of the deal that includes turning over 250,000 barrels of oil daily to Iraq’s State Organization for the Marketing of Oil (SOMO), a state-owned oil company.