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Iraq has been unable to sell crude above USD 85 a barrel while Brent is trading at USD 113, up from USD 101.86 a month ago, because it is paying buyers to carry the risk of loading inside the Gulf, a source at state marketer SOMO said. Iraq sold some 10 mn barrels from its southern ports in recent days at discounts of USD 25-28 a barrel, most of it to Indian refiners. The markdown on that sale alone comes to roughly USD 250-280 mn, by our calculation.
The discounts cover freight and ins. for buyers lifting crude from Iraq’s terminals, Oil Ministry spokesperson Salim Al Rikabi said. Iraq lacks a sizable tanker fleet and sits farther up the Gulf from Hormuz than its neighbors, so it pays buyers to take the shipping risk.
Regular customers are getting deeper cuts than the spot buyers. SOMO offered October-loading Basrah Medium at USD 34.50 below destination benchmarks and Basrah Heavy at as much as USD 37, against less than USD 30 for August and September cargoes. SOMO chief Ali Nizar told parliament last month that some term buyers had already switched to Gulf rivals offering deeper discounts.
Volume up, price down
India’s imports of Iraqi crude climbed from zero in April to 600k bbl / d in September and are running at 480k bbl / d so far in October, according to Kpler data shared with EnterpriseAM. September’s volume is close to a fifth of Iraq’s exports. “Increased STS activity supported cargo flows” in September and October, Nikhil Dubey, lead refining analyst at Kpler, tells us, referring to ship-to-ship transfers between tankers at sea.
Iraq earned USD 37.39 bn from 533.46 mn barrels of crude exports in the first nine months of 2026, according to Eco Iraq — an average of USD 70 a barrel, by our calculation. Exports have recovered to around 3.2 mn bbl / d, the oil minister has said.
