Iraq's average daily oil exports since the beginning of August have recovered and are at their highest since the outbreak of the Middle East war, which has piled up pressure on the Strait of Hormuz, the country's oil ministry said recently.
Iraqi Oil Minister Bassem Mohammed Khudair told a recent news conference that "exports since the beginning of the month have reached a rate of two million barrels" per day, for a total of around 26 million barrels through roughly the first two weeks of the month.
He said the daily rate had been achieved "for the first time since the crisis began" on Feb. 28 after U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, which retaliated by blocking the waterway crucial for global oil and gas trade.
Before the war, Iraq produced around four million barrels per day (bpd), and exported an average of 105 million barrels per month, mostly from its Basra oil terminal via Hormuz.
Ali Nizar, the head of Iraq's State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO), said in a TV interview last week that Iraq exported in July "35.5 to 37 million barrels" via Hormuz.
Another seven million barrels were exported through a pipeline to the Turkish port of Ceyhan.
According to SOMO data, Iraq exported via several routes just over 32 million barrels of crude oil in May and June, including more than 20 million barrels from its southern port.
Iraq, a founding member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), was forced to halt production in most of its oil fields during the war as reservoirs filled up.
Due to the waterway disruption, it began exporting crude using tanker trucks through Syria, as well as the pipeline to Türkiye.
