BAGHDAD: Iraq's current southern oil output and export levels, given by the country's oil minister on Saturday, indicate that fighting and unrest has not derailed an expansion of supplies from OPEC's second-largest producer.
The country's oil supplies were held back by decades of war and sanctions. It has been expanding oil production in the south since Western companies signed a series of service contracts with Baghdad in 2010, and boosted export capacity.
Iraq's oil exports from its southern terminals held close to a record high in October.
"Of course the average daily production in Iraq sometimes exceeded 3 million barrels per day, we may sometimes reach 3.2 million barrels per day," oil minister Adel Abdel Mehdi told reporters.
"Some of it goes to domestic refineries. The numbers are unstable ... The average exports also climbed to an average of about 2.5 million barrels per day."
Iraq's southern production capacity has been fluctuating, sometimes reaching 3.4-3.5 million bpd.
Iraq is facing its gravest crisis since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Islamic State militants swept through the north in June almost unopposed by the army.
The ultra-hardline Islamic State has seized oil and petroleum products in an attempt to create a self-sustaining caliphate. U.S. airstrikes in recent weeks have helped prevent the group from making further advances.
The government of Iraq and the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan reached a deal this week to ease tensions over Kurdish oil exports and civil service payments from Baghdad.
Under the agreement, Iraqi Kurdistan will give 150,000 barrels per day of oil exports - equal to around half its overall shipments - to the federal budget.
Abdel Mehdi predicted the deal would double Iraqi output.
A spokesman for the Kurdistan regional government in the north has said the Baghdad government would not gain control of Kurdish exports. Those shipments have caused strains in ties.
Exports from Iraq's southern terminals averaged 2.55 million barrels per day (bpd), according to shipping data for the first 23 days of October tracked by Reuters. An industry source who monitors the exports had a similar estimate.
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