Iraq's crude oil exports rose to 1.925 million barrels a day in June, up 1.3% on May, the head of the State Oil Marketing Organization, Falah Alamri, told Dow Jones Newswires Tuesday.
In June, Iraq exported an average of 1.397 million barrels a day from its southern oil fields through the Basra oil terminal, Alamri said. Some 518,000 barrels a day were exported from Iraq's northern oil fields via the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, he said. The remaining 10,000 barrels a day were shipped to Jordan via trucks from Kirkuk.
In May, some 1.45 million barrels a day were exported from Basra, while some 450,000 barrels a day were exported via Turkey. It isn't known why exports from Basra were down in June.
The increase in exports from the north in June was due to the fact that the Kurdistan Regional Government, or KRG, started exporting from two oil fields in northern Iraq in June. It isn't known exactly how much they exported, although they say they were pumping around 60,000 barrels a day.
Iraq earned some $3.4 billion from its oil sales in June, bringing the total revenue from oil during the first six months of 2009 to nearly $16 billion, Alamri said.
SOMO sold its crude oil in June at an average price of around $65 a barrel, compared with $57.17 a barrel in May, he added.
Iraq exported an average of 1.85 million barrels a day in the first half of this year, the same as in 2008. Iraq is currently producing around 2.4 million barrels a day.
The Iraqi Oil Ministry held a first bid round of oil and gas contracts June 30, with the aim of doubling output, but only one field, Rumaila, was awarded to a consortium led by BP PLC (BP).