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Iraq has raised its crude oil export capacity to more than 3 million barrels per day and aims to increase it to 5 million bpd by developing new pipeline routes through Türkiye and Syria, Oil Minister Basim Mohammed Khudair said Saturday.
Khudair told the official Iraqi News Agency that exports have reached about 3 million bpd since the beginning of September.
He said capacity could rise to 5 million bpd once strategic pipelines linking Iraqi oil fields to Fishkhabur in the north and Syria’s Mediterranean port of Banias are completed.
The government is seeking alternative export routes to reduce Iraq’s dependence on the Strait of Hormuz.
Last month, Prime Minister Ali Faleh al-Zeidi ordered work to proceed on two strategic pipeline routes: Basra-Haditha-Fishkhabur and Haditha-Banias.
The northern route would connect southern oil fields with Fishkhabur near the Turkish border, providing access to the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline and Türkiye’s Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.
The western route would connect Haditha with Syria’s Banias port, giving Iraq another Mediterranean outlet and potentially reviving a historic oil corridor between Iraq and Syria.
The government said the projects are intended to diversify export routes and strengthen Iraq’s ability to move crude to international markets.
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Iraq holds about 145 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, according to official figures.
Its oil output fell from 3.3 million bpd to about 1.3 million bpd during the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran that began in late February, before starting to recover in July and August.
The push for alternative export routes comes as disruptions continue in the Strait of Hormuz amid tensions between Washington and Tehran.
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