Iraqi crude back above 3.4 million barrels a day, from a March trough of 1.3 million
Oil Minister Bassem Mohammed Khudair told the state news agency exports have averaged over 3.4m bpd this month — near the pre-war baseline — which reopens every fiscal fight Baghdad had been able to plead poverty on.
Khudair told INA on Monday 19 October that Iraqi crude exports had averaged more than 3.4 million barrels per day so far in October, against a pre-war shipment baseline of 3.3 to 3.5 million bpd. The comparison that gives the figure its weight is eight months old: on 8 March, sources told Reuters that Iraqi output and exports had collapsed by around 70 percent, to 1.3 million bpd, after the Iran war effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of global oil transits. Baghdad’s substitute route runs north. Exports via Turkey’s Ceyhan resumed on 18 March, with 200,000 to 250,000 bpd expected from Kirkuk and a further 200,000 bpd possible from the Kurdistan Region, and on 1 August Ankara and Baghdad signed a one-year pipeline agreement — an arrangement that expires on 1 August 2027.
The fiscal context is unforgiving. Oil supplies roughly 90 percent of government revenue, and al-Zaidi, a former banker, devalued the dinar by about 15 percent against the dollar to cover essential public spending and salaries, according to Al Jazeera’s 16 October report on the cabinet’s completion. The same report framed parliament’s approval of the remaining ministers against growing economic concerns. Al-Zaidi told parliament that his deputies would receive no salary and no financial allowances, Iraq Business News reported, counting eleven new ministers in the 15 October vote.
Assessment: A recovery of this size removes an excuse rather than solving a problem. While exports sat at 1.3m bpd, Baghdad could tell Erbil, the PMF payroll and the public sector alike that the money was not there. Above 3.4m bpd that argument lapses, and distribution becomes a political choice with names attached to it. Two tests land inside ten days: SOMO’s month-end figure, and whether KRG October salaries are paid. The pipeline deal’s one-year term is the quieter story — Ankara now holds annual renewal leverage over Baghdad’s only functioning export route, and the clock on that started on 1 August.