By Fatima Kamal

Iraqi oil exports averaged 1.8 million barrels a day for the whole month of June, the Ministry of Oil said.

The ministry’s spokesman Isam Jihad said Iraq exported 54.7 million barrels of oil last month, earning $3.8 billion.

The average is below exports in the months before the invasion of Iraq by U.S. troops in 2003 when exports used to average 2 million barrels a day or even more.

Iraqi oil output has slumped from heights of nearly 3.5 million barrels a day before the country’s 1990 invasion

The peak output achieved since then hovered at 2.8 million barrels a day before the 2003 U.S. invasion.

Most of the country’s exports (1.4 million barrels a day) are ferried to international markets from terminals at the head of the Gulf.

The twin pipeline via Turkey, which used to carry up to 800,000 barrels a day, is operational but with less than half that capacity.

Source http://www.azzaman.com/english/

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