Iraq plans to cut March Basra oil exports to lowest since August

Reuters

Iraq, OPEC’s second-largest producer, plans to cut crude exports from its southern port of Basra to 3.013 million barrels per day (bpd) in March, a loading programme obtained by Reuters on Monday showed.
The March volume is 628,000 bpd less than what was planned for February
and the lowest since the August programme, adding to signs that Baghdad is complying with an agreement among the Organization of the Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC) to cut output.
For March, exports of Basra Light, the country’s flagship grade, will drop to 2.207 million bpd and exports for Basra Heavy will fall slightly to 806,000 bpd, according to the programme. Iraq’s state-owned Oil Marketing Co. (SOMO) could not be reached for comment. Iraqi Basra crude exports often deviate from planned volumes on loading delays and infrastructure-related issues.
In January, actual exports were at 3.275mn bpd against an initial plan of 3.53 million bpd as Iraq complied with the OPEC deal. Iraq had planned to push exports to an all-time high of 3.641mn bpd in February, but is unlikely to reach this target as the Basra oil terminal stopped loading for 24 hours last week because of pipeline work.