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Iraq Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani has directed his ministry to halt imports of center distillates akin to gasoline, diesel and kerosene, claiming his nation has achieved self-sufficiency by elevated oil manufacturing coupled with ongoing additions of refining capability. Iraq has ramped up oil manufacturing and exports, partly by the success of its Nasiriyah discipline in addition to elevated manufacturing quotas throughout the OPEC+ settlement. Particularly, manufacturing on the Nasiriyah discipline has elevated to 80,000 barrels a day by bringing 9 wells on-line, with the nation’s whole oil exports averaging between 3.4 and three.45 million barrels a day in September.
In the meantime, Iraq has been revamping its refining infrastructure. Iraq’s Oil Ministry has been working around the clock to bolster refining capability because the formation of a brand new authorities in late-2022. The OPEC member at the moment has refining nameplate capability of ~1.3 million barrels per day, with plans to additional increase it to over 1.5 million barrels per day within the close to future. Beforehand, the nation’s refining sector was badly degraded by frequent terrorist assaults, together with the destruction of the Shamal (North) refinery with output of 150,000 b/d by the Islamic State terrorist group in 2014. In line with FGE NexantECA oil analyst Palash Jain, the upgrades on oil refineries have gone a good distance into making Iraq self-sufficient in oil merchandise.
“Iraq primarily imports two oil merchandise. One is gasoline, and the opposite one is gasoil diesel. Prior to now two to a few years, Iraq has carried out fairly an incredible job in upgrading their refineries, particularly in Karbala, Basra in addition to in Kirkuk,” the analyst mentioned. “The event will assist the nation to scale back import payments and help financial improvement.”
That mentioned, it’s uncertain whether or not Iraq has actually achieved a steadiness the place output exceeds all consumption classes in quantity and high quality. This isn’t the primary time that the Iraqi authorities is claiming to have achieved self-sufficiency in supplying the home market. Final 12 months, Hamid Younes, Iraqi Deputy Oil Minister for Refining Affairs, instructed MEES that the nation was self-sufficient in center distillates, and that the nation would solely import ~40,000 b/d of gasoline and droop gasoil and kerosene imports. Nevertheless, Iraq nonetheless imports high-octane motor gasoline and sure grades of low-sulfur diesel that home refineries can not but produce to Euro-spec high quality.
Customs knowledge from UAE and India for Q2 2025 present persevering with exports of refined fuels to Iraq, although at diminished ranges. Jain estimates that Iraq imported 50,000 barrels per day of gasoline within the first half of the present 12 months, considerably decrease from 120,000 bpd final 12 months however nonetheless substantial.
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