Receiving again: the Ceyhan terminal in Turkey
Iraq flows back on track
Iraq's oil exports rose over 500,000 barrels per day today as the flow resumed through a bomb-damaged pipeline and the main terminal recovered from a storm, shipping agents said.
Exports flowed at 1.53 million bpd today, up from around 860,000 bpd on Monday, the shipping agents told Reuters.
Iraq's Northern Oil Company completed repairs to bomb damage on its northern pipeline to Turkey late yesterday, an Iraqi oil official said.
Pumping was fully restored early today, he added.
A bomb blast halted exports through the pipeline last Wednesday.
Oil was flowing through the line to the Turkish terminal of Ceyhan at around 450,000 bpd today according to the shipping agent.
Iraqi oil in storage at Ceyhan stood at 1.35 million barrels, he added.
At Iraq's main oil terminal at Basra, in the south of the country, and the nearby Khor al-Amaya facility, pumping rose to 1.08 million bpd from 860,000 bpd yesterday as operations recovered after a storm, another shipping agent said.
The flow was still well below the average of around 1.5 million bpd from Basra.
The bomb blast on the northern pipeline was the first to interrupt the flow for many months.
Tighter security has allowed Baghdad to boost the flow through the line since August last year.
Sabotage and technical problems kept the route mostly idle until last year following the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.