ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s oil ministry said Tuesday that two tankers carrying Iraqi crude oil have passed through the Strait of Hormuz this month amid ongoing maritime restrictions in the strategic waterway.
"This month, two ships carrying Iraqi oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz. The last one loaded one million barrels of oil from Basra on Sunday,” Iraq's Oil Ministry undersecretary Basim Khudair told Rudaw.
The passage comes after months of maritime navigation restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz following an Iranian-imposed blockade after the US and Israel launched a wide-scale aerial campaign against Iran on February 28. The conflict lasted more than six weeks before the sides agreed to a Pakistan-mediated ceasefire on April 8, paving the way for negotiations.
Khudair said that if the waterway reopens “within a week, they can reach the export capacity of three million barrels."
Iranian state-affiliated media announced Monday that a tanker carrying Iraqi crude oil had passed through the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday.
The Maltese-flagged tanker departed Iraq’s southern Basra port in late April and is expected to arrive at Vietnam’s Nghi Son port on May 26, according to vessel tracking service MarineTraffic.
In early April, Ebrahim Zolfaghari, spokesperson for the IRGC’s Khatam al-Anbiya Headquarters, said that "brotherly Iraq" would be exempt from the blockade, which he said would apply only to "hostile nations." Despite that, Iraq has struggled to restore oil exports to prewar levels because it relies heavily on foreign vessels for crude shipments.
Before the six-week war, Iraq produced around 4.5 million barrels of oil per day and exported roughly 3.5 million barrels daily, with nearly 90 percent of exports passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
According to Iraqi oil ministry figures, exports dropped to 18.6 million barrels in March, generating about $1.96 billion in revenue, compared with more than 99 million barrels and $6.81 billion in February.
Malik Mohammed contributed to this article from Erbil, Kurdistan Region.
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