ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Iraqi State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO) announced on Wednesday that it has sold limited quantities of oil through Basra ports this month, noting that crude exported via the Kurdistan Region’s pipeline is fetching high prices amid global energy shortages caused by restrictions at the Strait of Hormuz.
Ali Nizar, director of SOMO, told Rudaw on Wednesday that oil exports through the Kurdistan Region’s pipeline range “between 160,000 to 200,000 barrels per day (bpd),” adding that the crude is being sold at a “high price on the global market,” with volumes fluctuating depending on “loading operations, stored quantities, and tankers.”
This comes against the backdrop of the US-Israeli military campaign against Iran on February 28, which triggered retaliatory strikes by Tehran and its allied groups, involving the launch of thousands of one-way drones and missiles targeting American assets in the region and Israel. The conflict also saw Iran close the Strait of Hormuz at the outset, leading to global energy shortages, as roughly 20 percent of the world’s energy supplies transit through the vital waterway.
Iraq relies heavily on oil exports, with the head of the Oil Ministry’s media department stating in mid-April that “more than 90 percent of Iraq’s economy relies on oil exports.”
Addressing concerns over Iraqi oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, the SOMO director said the country does not “own oil transport ships. We sell the oil at the southern ports,” adding that whether buyers ship it through the Strait or use it within the Gulf is “the business of the purchasing companies, not ours.