Iraq

Iraq at a glance

Iraq produced 4.33 million barrels per day (b/d) of crude oil in 2025 and 4.50 million b/d of total liquids, which made it OPEC's second-largest producer after Saudi Arabia, according to the US Energy Information Administration's Short-Term Energy Outlook, October 2026 (checked October 2026). In the second quarter of 2026 output collapsed to 1.54 million b/d, a fall of about 64 percent from the 2025 average, because Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz in March 2026 (EIA Country Analysis Brief: United Arab Emirates, July 2026, checked October 2026) and almost all Iraqi exports leave through the Gulf.

No other large producer depends so heavily on one coastline. Saudi Arabia has a pipeline to the Red Sea and the United Arab Emirates has one to the Gulf of Oman. Iraq's alternative is a pipeline north through Turkey to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, with a fraction of the capacity of its southern terminals. That geography, more than OPEC+ quotas, explains the 2026 numbers on this page.

The sources here are the state oil marketer SOMO for monthly export volumes, EIA for production and the structure of the sector, and the EIA country summary of September 2022 for older baseline figures, each dated where used.

Production, quarter by quarter

Period	Crude oil (million b/d)	Total liquids (million b/d)
2025 Q1	4.31	4.48
2025 Q2	4.30	4.48
2025 Q3	4.37	4.54
2025 Q4	4.33	4.50
2025 average	4.33	4.50
2026 Q1	3.41	3.55
2026 Q2	1.54	1.60
2026 Q3	3.37	3.49

Source: EIA, Short-Term Energy Outlook, October 2026, Tables 3c and 3d. Recent quarters are EIA estimates. Checked October 2026.

Iraq's liquids and crude figures sit close together, unlike Saudi Arabia's, because Iraq produces relatively little natural gas liquids: most of its gas is associated with oil and much of it has been flared rather than processed. The 2025 line was flat at about 4.3 million b/d all year, consistent with an OPEC+ member producing at or near its agreed level. The third-quarter 2026 rebound to 3.37 million b/d shows how quickly southern output came back once tankers could load again, though not to the 2025 pace.

For longer context, EIA's 2022 summary records an annual high of 4.7 million b/d in 2019, a fall to under 4.1 million b/d in 2020 under the OPEC+ cuts, and an estimated crude production capacity of 4.6 million b/d in mid-2022, with spare capacity below 200,000 b/d at that time (EIA Country Analysis Executive Summary: Iraq, September 28, 2022, checked October 2026). The oil ministry's target of 8 million b/d of capacity by 2028, reported in the same summary, has never been close to the realised numbers.

Exports by outlet: SOMO's 2026 monthly figures

SOMO, the State Oil Marketing Organization under the Ministry of Oil, publishes crude exports by outlet in barrels per month. Its 2026 series separates three routes: Basra in the south, the northern outlet for crude from the federally run Kirkuk fields, and crude from the Kurdistan Region, which also travels north (SOMO, crude oil exports chart, checked October 2026).

Month (2026)	Basra (barrels)	Northern outlet (barrels)	Kurdistan Region (barrels)
January	101,160,349	not reported	6,455,871
February	93,349,480	971,130	5,551,610
March	14,561,534	2,772,217	1,271,200
April	4,587,610	4,957,456	339,064
May	2,439,800	5,193,597	not reported
June	17,799,036	5,117,619	1,564,625

Source: SOMO export data, read October 22, 2026. SOMO gives January's total as 107.6 million barrels, with Basra at 94.0 percent.

Worked example: turning monthly barrels into barrels per day

SOMO's units are barrels per month, while production data are in barrels per day. Converting puts the two on the same scale.

1. January total: 101,160,349 + 6,455,871 = 107,616,220 barrels, divided by 31 days = 3.47 million b/d.
2. February total: 93,349,480 + 971,130 + 5,551,610 = 99,872,220 barrels, divided by 28 days = 3.57 million b/d, the highest daily rate of the six months.
3. May total: 2,439,800 + 5,193,597 = 7,633,397 barrels, divided by 31 days = 0.25 million b/d, about 7 percent of the January rate.
4. The northern share in May: 5,193,597 ÷ 7,633,397 = 68 percent of all exports that month, against roughly 6 percent in January.

The fourth step is the one worth remembering. The northern route did not grow into a replacement for Basra; at about 168,000 b/d in May (5,193,597 ÷ 31), it was a small, steady flow that became the majority only because the southern flow almost stopped. In June, Basra recovered to 17.8 million barrels, about 593,000 b/d, still less than a fifth of its January rate.

The gap between production and exports in these months went to domestic refineries, power plants that burn crude, and storage. Adding April, May, and June gives 41,998,807 barrels over 91 days, or about 0.46 million b/d of exports, against EIA's second-quarter production estimate of 1.54 million b/d. The difference, roughly 1.1 million b/d, is close to the 0.85 million b/d Iraq consumed in 2021 plus some storage, which is a plausible split but not a measured one: production estimates made during a disruption carry wide error bands.

Why Basra is the bottleneck even in normal years

EIA's 2022 summary describes southern export capacity as constrained by ageing infrastructure: operational export capacity fell from about 3.7 million b/d before 2020 to about 3.3 million b/d in early 2022. Projects planned at that time included a new subsea line, Sealine 3, with 700,000 b/d of capacity, and repairs to the line feeding the Khor al-Amaya terminal, closed since 2017 because of leaks, to carry 600,000 b/d. In 2021, about 87 percent of seaborne exports left from the southern terminals.

That matters because Iraq's production ceiling has often been set by what the terminals can load, not by the fields. A producer whose capacity estimate is 4.6 million b/d and whose own consumption is close to 0.9 million b/d can only export what the moorings off Basra handle; extra output has nowhere to go. The OPEC+ quota and compliance debates about Iraq usually skip this constraint.

The southern crude grades

Iraq markets Basra crude in several qualities. EIA notes that in January 2021 SOMO split a new Basra Medium grade off the Basra Light stream, and that it ended exports of Basra Light in January 2022, keeping that grade for domestic refineries. Grade changes affect which refiners can take the crude and at what discount; the barrel-of-oil explainer covers how API gravity and sulfur content set those differences.

The north: Kirkuk, Kurdistan, and Ceyhan

Oil from northern Iraq reaches world markets through a pipeline to Ceyhan in Turkey. EIA's 2022 summary sets out the political background:

• The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) held a non-binding independence referendum on September 25, 2017. In October 2017 federal forces took over oil fields in the Kirkuk area, and the federal North Oil Company took over the Avana Dome, Baba Dome, and Bai Hassan fields.
• Northern production, about 600,000 b/d before the referendum, fell to roughly half by the end of October 2017 and later recovered. KRG-area output reached nearly 470,000 b/d in 2019.
• In February 2022 Iraq's Federal Supreme Court ruled that the KRG had no authority to produce or market oil and gas and that its contracts with foreign companies were illegal. The KRG rejected the ruling.
• A November 2018 agreement allowed up to 100,000 b/d of federal crude from Kirkuk to use the KRG pipeline to Turkey; Iraq exported nearly that much by this route in 2021.

Resource estimates for the north vary widely. EIA cites Rystad Energy's estimate of about 3.7 billion barrels of oil resources in KRG-controlled areas as of May 2022, against a KRG figure of 45 billion barrels, which includes unproven resources and the disputed Kirkuk fields. A reader should not add either number to the federal reserves figure without knowing which definition is being used.

SOMO's 2026 data show both northern streams moving in the first half of 2026, which is why Iraq kept some export revenue during the months when Basra was nearly shut.

Fields and the projects meant to raise output

Iraq's large fields are onshore and mostly in the south. The EIA summary lists projects announced as of 2022, with their stated additions:

Project	Operator or investor (2022)	Added capacity (thousand b/d)	Announced start
Majnoon	Basra Oil Company	200	2025
West Qurna-1	ExxonMobil and Basra Oil Company	330	2027
West Qurna-2	Lukoil	350	2027
Ratawi	TotalEnergies	125	2026
Dhi Qar fields (Nasiriya, Gharaf, Subba)	Iraq National Oil Company	about 380	2028
Faihaa	United Energy Group	70	2024

Source: EIA executive summary, September 2022, compiled from MEES, FACTS Global Energy, Rystad Energy and company sites. These are announced targets, not delivered capacity.

The binding constraint behind several of these projects is water. Southern fields need water injected to hold reservoir pressure, and the planned seawater supply scheme, part of TotalEnergies' $27 billion agreement signed in September 2021, was described by EIA as delayed for several years. Without injection water, new wells raise output briefly and then decline.

Gas: flared at the wellhead, imported for power

Iraq's gas story is a lesson in waste. EIA's 2022 summary gives proved gas reserves of nearly 131 trillion cubic feet at the end of 2021, mostly associated with oil in the southern fields. Dry gas production was 353 billion cubic feet (Bcf) in 2021, while consumption was 650 Bcf, much of it in power plants. In the same year, World Bank data cited by EIA show Iraq flaring nearly 630 Bcf, the second largest volume of any country after Russia.

Put those three numbers side by side: Iraq burned off almost as much gas as it consumed, and close to twice what it marketed, while importing gas to make electricity. Processing capacity was about 550 Bcf a year in 2021, and contracts under negotiation aimed for nearly 1.5 trillion cubic feet by 2027. The government had pushed its target to end routine flaring to 2027. In the Kurdistan Region, the Khor Mor field, operated by the UAE's Dana Gas, had operational capacity of about 164 Bcf a year for local power plants.

Refining and domestic demand

Iraq consumed about 850,000 b/d of petroleum and other liquids in 2021, growing about 3 percent a year over the previous decade, and its effective refining capacity was about 900,000 b/d. Capacity is not the same as fit: EIA notes that the refineries make more heavy fuel oil than the country needs and not enough gasoline and diesel, so Iraq imports both and also burns crude for electricity. Planned additions included the 150,000 b/d Karbala refinery and a 70,000 b/d expansion at Basra. Readers interested in why refinery configuration matters more than headline capacity can compare this with the refinery crack spreads guide.

Who buys Iraqi crude

In 2021, by EIA's tanker data, seaborne exports averaged nearly 3.5 million b/d. Asia took 64 percent, led by China and India at almost 1 million b/d each. Turkey and Italy each took about 217,000 b/d, and Europe as a whole took 24 percent. Exports to the United States had declined each year since 2017. Small volumes also went by truck to Jordan, and a short swap with Iran, about 30,000 b/d of Kirkuk crude trucked to Iran against Iranian cargoes delivered at Basra, ended by November 2018.

Oil and the state budget

EIA cites IMF estimates that crude export revenue was about 92 percent of government revenue in 2019. Revenue fell to $42 billion in 2020 and rose to more than $75 billion in 2021 with higher prices. The 2026 export data above show what that dependence means in practice: a month in which exports fall to a quarter of a million barrels a day is a month in which most of the state's income disappears, with salaries, power subsidies, and the budget still to pay.

Worked example: a revenue illustration with stated inputs

Iraq does not publish a daily revenue series alongside SOMO's volumes, so the following is an illustration, not a reported figure. Assume an average realised price of $90 a barrel, a round number chosen only for the arithmetic.

• January 2026: 107.6 million barrels × $90 = about $9.7 billion for the month.
• May 2026: 7.6 million barrels × $90 = about $0.69 billion for the month.

Prices did rise sharply in between: the weekly WTI spot prices archived on this site's WTI price page averaged about $60 a barrel in January 2026 and about $102 in May, a rise of roughly 70 percent. Apply that same 70 percent uplift to the May illustration and revenue is still only about $1.2 billion, roughly an eighth of January's. Volume, not price, decided the 2026 budget.

What to watch in Iraq's monthly numbers

For a reader following Iraq through the recovery, four series carry most of the signal:

1. Basra loadings in SOMO's monthly table. The single best measure of whether the southern system is back. January 2026's 101 million barrels is the reference level.
2. The northern and Kurdistan rows together. In a normal month these were around 6 to 7 million barrels combined; a sharp drop points to a pipeline, payment, or legal problem in the north rather than a Gulf issue.
3. EIA's quarterly production estimate. Compare it with exports converted to barrels per day. A gap much larger than domestic demand of roughly 0.9 million b/d suggests storage is filling or the estimate will be revised.
4. Flaring and gas imports. Progress on gas capture shows up first as less crude and fuel oil burned in power plants, which leaves more crude for export at the same production level.

Pitfalls in Iraq's export numbers

• Two governments, two reporting lines. Production and export figures for the Kurdistan Region have been reported separately, and sometimes inconsistently, from federal figures. SOMO's 2026 table now lists Kurdistan crude as its own row.
• Months marked "not reported". SOMO shows no figure for the northern outlet in January 2026 and none for the Kurdistan Region in May 2026. A blank is not the same as zero; do not average across it.
• Estimates during a disruption. EIA's 2026 quarterly figures are estimates built partly on tanker tracking. Monthly loadings and production can diverge sharply when storage fills or empties.
• Dated baseline. The EIA executive summary is from September 2022. Use its project list and infrastructure description for structure; check completion before treating any listed capacity as available.

Frequently asked questions

How much oil does Iraq produce?

EIA estimates 4.33 million b/d of crude oil in 2025. In 2026 output fell to 3.41 million b/d in the first quarter, 1.54 million b/d in the second, and recovered to 3.37 million b/d in the third.

Where does Iraq export its oil from?

Mostly from terminals off Basra in the Gulf, which carried 94 percent of crude exports in January 2026 according to SOMO. A smaller flow goes north by pipeline to Ceyhan in Turkey, from both the Kirkuk fields and the Kurdistan Region.

Why did Iraq's exports collapse in 2026?

Because the Strait of Hormuz was effectively closed from March 2026 and Basra cargoes must pass through it. SOMO's data show Basra loadings falling from about 101 million barrels in January to about 2.4 million in May.

How large are Iraq's oil reserves?

EIA's 2022 summary gives 145 billion barrels of proved reserves, about 17 percent of the Middle East total and 8 percent of the world's.

Why does Iraq flare so much gas?

Because most of its gas comes out of the ground with oil and there has not been enough pipeline and processing capacity to capture it. Iraq flared nearly 630 billion cubic feet in 2021, close to its total gas consumption that year.

Is Iraq part of OPEC+?

Yes. Iraq is an OPEC member subject to OPEC+ production agreements. The guide to the OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report explains how its output is reported in OPEC's tables.

More on Iraq and the Gulf

The 2026 disruption is set in context in the global supply chokepoints guide, which covers Hormuz and the alternatives. To see how Iraq compares with other producers year by year, use the world oil production map.

References

1. U.S. Energy Information Administration, Short-Term Energy Outlook, October 2026, Tables 3c and 3d. https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/tables/pdf/3dtab.pdf (checked October 2026)
2. State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO), Ministry of Oil, crude oil exports by outlet, 2026. https://somooil.gov.iq/ar/exports/chart (checked October 2026)
3. EIA, Country Analysis Executive Summary: Iraq, September 28, 2022. https://www.eia.gov/international/content/analysis/countries_long/Iraq/iraq_exe.pdf (checked October 2026)
4. EIA, Country Analysis Brief: United Arab Emirates, July 2026 (context on the March 2026 Hormuz closure). https://www.eia.gov/international/content/analysis/countries_long/United_Arab_Emirates/uae.pdf (checked October 2026)
5. EIA, Short-Term Energy Outlook, October 2026, Global Oil Markets. https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/global_oil.php (checked October 2026)