Iraq Oil Exports

Iraq Oil Exports

Even with the extra loading facilities at Basra, a lack of pumping capacity and onshore storage tankswill keep production growth in check, Miswin Mahesh, an analyst at Barclays Plc in London, wrote in a report April 30. Iraq can boost exports from West Qurna-2 or another of the fields being developed only by scaling back flows elsewhere, he wrote.

Some Asian refiners have complained about the presence of too much water in some cargoes from Iraq, the result of inadequate oil-treatment facilities, according to Mahesh. High sulfur content in the main Basrah Light grade has also been an issue, R.K. Mehra, head of international trade at Bharat Petroleum Corp., an Indian refiner, said in Abu Dhabi on May 7.

“We don’t see significantly more export capacity” this year, Alexander Poegl, an analyst at JBC Energy GmbH in Vienna, said by phone on May 13. “The volumes we’ve seen earlier in the year are kind of the maximum we would expect to happen. It’s a healthy development in Iraq, but we don’t see the big numbers others might sometimes suggest.”

Credit: Bloomberg.net