Iraq reveals rare detailed breakdown of oil production figures

The Opec member has published how much each of its fields pumped last month, which is a break from tradition as it usually provides data for just two.

A worker checks the valve of an oil pipe at Al Sheiba oil refinery in Basra. Iraq has unusually published detailed data on production from all of its oilfields. Essam Al Sudani / Reuters

Iraq has published data showing a rare level of detail for its oil production and exports.

The country’s state oil marketing agency released a statement on Sunday showing September production figures for each of the 26 fields it controls, plus a single output figure for the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, which manages its crude independently. Previous monthly statements showed just two figures: total production and total exports. The Oil Marketing Company, known as Somo, also provided detailed data on exports and domestic consumption.

Opec’s second-largest producer says it pumped more than 4.7 million barrels a day last month, several hundred thousand barrels a day more than oil-industry watchers recognise. Opec assesses output for its 14 members based on such secondary sources. Iraq wants the group to accept the ministry’s figures before a November 30 meeting at which Opec could limit production for its members.

The Iraq oil minister Jabbar Al Luaibi complained about Opec data at a meeting in September in Algiers. He adopted a milder approach last week, inviting reporters to Baghdad for a tour of the national museum and a detailed discussion of production figures. “We want you to see for yourselves what our production is,” he said last week.

The field-specific data for September sheds light on how Somo calculates Iraqi production. However, it does not provide a breakdown of Kurdish production, which accounts for much of the difference between the data cited by Somo and secondary sources.

"It's an effort of transparency and backing up their numbers, but I'm not quite sure how effective it's going to be," Robin Mills, the chief executive of the consultant Qamar Energy and a columnist for The National, said in Dubai. "The biggest discrepancy is likely to be in the Kurdish fields."

Production from the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq averaged 546,000 barrels a day last month, according to Somo. That figure is an estimate because the central government has not received the latest production data from Kurdish authorities, the Somo director general Falah Al Amri said last week. Somo bases its estimate on what Kurdish production was in 2013 and 2014, he said.

In the north of the country, the Kirkuk and Baba Gurgur fields produced 93,000 barrels a day for the federal North Oil Company (NOC), Somo said. The nearby Bai Hasan and Avana fields pumped 275,000 barrels a day for the NOC.

The BP-operated Rumaila oilfield, Iraq’s largest, pumped an average of 1.4 million barrels a day in September, Somo said. The two fields at West Qurna produced a combined 870,000 barrels a day, while output from Zubair was 390,000; Majnoon, 214,000; and Halfaya, 204,000.

* Bloomberg

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