Three oil tankers dock at Iraq’s Basra Port

Shafaq News- Basra

Three crude oil tankers with a combined capacity of five million barrels have docked at Iraq’s Basra Oil Port to load cargoes bound for global markets, a source at the state-owned General Company for Ports of Iraq told Shafaq News on Thursday.

The chartered vessels, operated by Indian and Chinese companies, berthed at the port’s single-point mooring terminals. Two can each carry two million barrels, while the third has a capacity of one million.

Additional tankers are expected in the coming days, with some already approaching Iraqi territorial waters and others waiting offshore for clearance.

Iraq, OPEC’s second-largest producer, exports about 95% of its crude through southern terminals, leaving it highly exposed to disruptions in Gulf shipping. Eco Iraq, an economic affairs observatory, estimated that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz had cut exports by about 350 million barrels by June 20, costing the country roughly $37.7 billion in revenue.

The Oil Ministry reported earlier this week that Iraq exported 32.11 million barrels of crude, including condensates, worth about $2.34 billion during May and June. The total comprised 20.24 million barrels from Basra, 10.31 million barrels of Kirkuk crude shipped through Turkiye’s Ceyhan port, and 1.56 million barrels from the Kurdistan Region through the same route.

Read more: No exit but Hormuz: Iraq's economic vulnerability exposed