Iraq just told its oil field operators to crank up the pumps. The country’s Oil Ministry has declared plans to push southern oil production past 3 million barrels per day within the next one to two months, a target that would have seemed ambitious even before war shattered its export infrastructure.
The directive came after the US and Iran reached a deal that effectively ended the conflict disrupting one of the world’s most critical oil chokepoints.
From 1.3 million to 3 million: the scale of Iraq’s recovery
During the US-Israeli war on Iran, fighting choked off exports through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil passes daily. Iraq’s southern fields cratered to approximately 1.3 million barrels per day.
Production from southern fields has climbed by 250,000 barrels per day to reach 1.75 million bpd. The Oil Ministry expects output to hit 2 million bpd in the near term, with the 3 million bpd target sitting roughly one to two months out on the timeline.
