There is much in early 2018 for the veteran oil minister Jabbar Al-Luaibi to feel positive about, wih exports from the southern Basra terminals breaking historical records. In December 2017, Iraq averaged 3.535m b/d of exports, the fourth successive month of higher loadings, according to Ministry of Oil (MOO) data. Overall production averaged 4.41m b/d, according to S&P Global Platts – slightly higher than the country’s 4.34m b/d Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) quota.
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