OREANDA-NEWS. Iraq's oil ministry has reported a 42,000 b/d month-on-month increase in crude oil exports.

Iraq exported 95.61mn bl of crude last month, equivalent to just under 3.19mn b/d, compared with 3.15mn b/d in May.

Iraq exported 3.02mn b/d from its southern Mideast Gulf terminals, representing a 493,000 b/d increase from southern exports last month, according to ministry data.

The split of the country's flagship Basrah crude into light and heavy streams has allowed upstream operators in Iraq to boost production, as output had previously been curtailed at several fields to reduce variations in Basrah Light's quality.

Iraq exported 165,000 b/d of Kirkuk crude via the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline in June, down from the 450,000 b/d exported in May.

Iraq has not exported any Kirkuk crude since 22 June, as the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is not transferring crude from its export infrastructure into storage tanks at Ceyhan leased by Iraq's official crude marketer Somo. As a result, there is no crude for Somo to sell from the Turkish terminal. This follows the resurgence of the row over crude oil export revenue payments received by the KRG for deliveries of crude to Somo.