Iraq oil exports tops 2M barrels per day…

Iraq has raised oil exports to a post-war high, Oil Minister Hussain Shahristani told Ahmed Rasheed of Reuters. "In May, we have exceeded for the first time 2 million barrels-per-day (bpd) as an export rate," Shahristani said. He also said proposals have been submitted for all six Technical Support Contracts to boost production.

Iraq should boost crude oil export capacity to 6 million barrels a day, nearly three times the amount the country currently sends to international markets, a top Kurdish political leader urged Tuesday, Barbara Surk reports for The Associated Press. The goal set by Nechirvan Barzani, the prime minister of Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region, gave no proposed timetables and would far exceed even the nation's peak oil output shortly before the 1990 invasion of Kuwait. But the Kurds and the Iraqi government are locked in a dispute over the rights to sign oil contracts, and export levels remain a critical issue for both sides.