Iraq has cut oil production by nearly 1.5 million barrels a day and those cuts could widen to more than three million bpd within days as the country runs out of storage and cannot export crude due to the Iran crisis, two Iraqi oil officials told Reuters on Tuesday.
As of Tuesday, Iraq has cut production from the Rumaila oil field by 700,000 bpd, from the West Qurna 2 field by 460,000 bpd and from the Maysan field by 325,000 bpd, the officials, who did not wish to be named, said.
That output cut could grow to over three million bpd if oil tankers cannot move freely through the Strait of Hormuz and reach loading ports, they added. Export disruptions from the Strait of Hormuz slowdown pushed storage to critical levels in Iraq's southern ports, the sources said.
Iraq produced about four million bpd in January. The Maysan field was producing 650,000 bpd prior to the cut, the officials said.
The US-Israeli war with Iran has halted energy exports from the Middle East, with Tehran attacking ships and energy facilities, closing navigation in the Gulf and forcing production stoppages from Qatar to Iraq.
Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz was closed for a fourth day after Iran attacked five ships, choking off a key artery accounting for about 20 per cent of global oil and liquefied natural gas supply.
China and India are the two biggest recipients of Iraqi crude exports, accounting for nearly two-thirds of the OPEC member's 3.33 million bpd average exports in 2025, according to Kpler data, with a further 560,000 bpd going to Europe.
BP, PetroChina and China National Offshore Oil Corporation, which operate the fields in Iraq, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed, Aref Mohammed; additional reporting by Stephanie Kelly and Ahmad Ghaddar; Writing by Stephanie Kelly and Nadine Awadalla; Editing by Susan Fenton and Nivedita Bhattacharjee)