Iraq is in negotiations over the size of its OPEC quota within its available capacity of 5.5 million barrels per day, oil minister Hayan Abdel-Ghani said at an oil conference on Monday.
The country, OPEC’s biggest overproducer, submitted plans in April to make further oil output cuts to compensate for pumping above agreed quotas.
Abdel-Ghani said that Iraq has been committed to its current OPEC quota of 4.4 million bpd despite having a bigger production capacity, with total oil exports currently totalling 3.6 million bpd.
A fire that broke out on Sunday in the southern Zubair oilfield has not affected exports, Abdel-Ghani added. Exports from Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region are currently at 195,000 bpd, and sometimes as high as 200,000 bpd, Abdel-Ghani added.
Kirkuk oil pipeline flows to Ceyhan restarted in late September after a two-and-a-half year hiatus, with the first exports in October.
(Reporting by Muayad Hameed, Writing by Nayera Abdallah; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)