After Russian invasion
Iraq achieves record oil export revenues
April 2, 2022, 1:35 p.m
Fear of a supply shortage caused oil prices to skyrocket after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Iraq benefits greatly from this as an oil exporter. Business is as good as it was last during the oil price crisis in 1973.
As a result of the Ukraine war in March, Iraq made more money from oil exports than it did before the oil price crisis in 1973. The Oil Ministry in Baghdad said that last month 100,563,999 barrels for $11.07 billion (10.02 billion euros) were exported. These are “the highest earnings since 1972”.
The data are said to be preliminary. A representative of the ministry said, however, that the numbers usually do not change much. By February, Iraq’s oil revenues had reached an eight-year high of $8.5 billion. Iraq’s oil exports account for 90 percent of government revenues. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, crude oil prices skyrocketed on fears of a major supply shortage. Russia is the second largest oil exporter in the world after Saudi Arabia.
Despite the high crude oil prices, the oil-producing countries that are members of OPEC and their partner countries led by Russia are only sticking to a moderate increase in output. In May, production is to be increased by a further 432,000 barrels a day, as the Opec+ group announced on Thursday. That is little more than the additional 400,000 barrels that have been produced in recent months and are agreed for April. After their ministerial meeting in Vienna, the 23 members of Opec+ declared that the reason for the current fluctuations on the oil market were “geopolitical developments” – the “fundamental data” had not changed. Observers had expected only a moderate expansion.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries consists of 13 countries led by Saudi Arabia. Iraq is the second largest oil producer. There is also a group of ten countries, sometimes referred to as Opec+, which also includes Russia.