Adel Abdul-Mahdi announced that Iraq produced a record volume of crude oil and intends to increase exports in 2015, despite a slump in oil prices.
"Iraq's daily oil production is an average of 4 million barrels per day what is a new historic record," the minister said.
According to the release of the State Oil Marketing Organization Iraqi, oil output in December totalled 3.35 million barrels per day.
Iraq aims to boost production of crude oil to 3.3 million barrels per day counting exports from Kurdistan, the region in the north of the country. The minister said, Iraq and Turkey made an agreement to increase oil exports to 375,000 barrels in early 2015 from Kurdistan through Ceyhan port, rising to 600,000 barrels by April of 2015.
Iraq extended oil exports to 2.94 million barrels a day in December 2014, while exports from Saudi Arabia hit the 7-month high in November 2014, according to the data of the Joint Organisation Data Initiative. The report reads that the Saudi oil export totalled 7.3 million barrels per day in November against 6.9 million barrels per day in October.
Oil prices plummeted about 50% last year due to extra supplies in the context of weak demand and OPEC's denial to cut the quotas. The minister is sure that prices for oil will recover in the first half of 2015, in spite of the ongoing adverse market conditions but they will never come back to the level of 2014.
