Iraq's crude oil exports averaged 1.85 million barrels a day in 2008, some 13.5% more than in 2007, the head of the country's State Oil Marketing Organization, or SOMO, said Wednesday.
Iraq's revenues from crude oil sales in 2008 reached around $60 billion, or 33.6% more than in 2007, Falah Alamri told Dow Jones Newswires by telephone from Baghdad.
The increase in oil revenues was helped by a surge in oil prices and an anticipated rise in exports at the beginning of 2008 that helped offset the sharp decrease in the market from a record high of $147 a barrel in July to as low as $36.94 a barrel in the last week of December.
The increase in 2008 exports was due to sustainable resumption of crude oil exports from northern Iraqi oil fields after a suspension of almost four-and-a-half years.
Alamri said that some 374,000 barrels a day were exported from northern Iraq last year. The remaining 1.476 million barrels a day were sold from southern terminals in the Arabian Gulf.
The higher exports levels in the north follow improved security around pipelines and other oil infrastructure to prevent sabotage attacks that previously hampered regular Kirkuk exports.
It is also partly due to operation of a major pipeline linking the production center of Kirkuk with oil gathering center of Baiji, which supplies local refineries and the Iraq-Turkey export pipeline.
Exports, however, fluctuated during the year from a record post-war high of 2 million barrels a day last May to as low as 1.7 million barrels a day in October. That was due to bad weather in the Gulf and acts of sabotage against the export pipeline inside the Turkish territories carried out by the Kurdish rebel party, the PKK.
Iraq sits on the world's third-largest proven oil reserves, with more than 115 billion barrels, but years of sanctions, war and neglect have crippled its oil infrastructure and it is in dire need of huge investment to boost output.
The country announced last year two bidding rounds of tenders with the aim of boosting production level from current 2.4 million barrels a day to 6 million barrels a day in four to five years time.
Baghdad relies on oil exports for more than 93% of its total revenues and the government had to reduce its 2009 budget to $67 billion from previous projection of $80 billion because of falling oil prices.