Iraq's oil exports in May ran at an average of 2.225 million barrels a day, putting them on track for the biggest monthly volume since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein's regime, head of the country's State Oil Marketing Organization, or SOMO, said Wednesday.
May marks the fifth straight month that Iraq's oil sales exceeded 2 million barrels a day thanks to gradual recovery in production and resumption of exports from the northern Kurdistan region. Iraq's total exports in April were 2.140 million barrels a day.
"Revenue from oil sales in May have exceeded the $7.342 billion that we earned in April," Falah Alamri, head of SOMO, told Dow Jones Newswires by telephone from Baghdad.
Basra Light exports flowed at 1.725 million barrels a day in May--up a touch on the 1.656 million barrels a day level in April. Kirkuk sales in May ran at 500,000 barrels a day, up from 483,333 barrels a day in April. Exports from Turkey's Ceyhan port were 490,000 barrels a day in May and the remainder was trucked to neighboring Jordan.