Iraq's oil exports increase in April to highest level in decades

Iraq's oil exports climbed in April to 3.077 million barrels per day (bpd), compared to 2.98 million bpd in March, recording the highest level of oil crude exports in decades, the Oil Ministry said on Saturday.

Iraq exported a total of 92.8 million barrels over the 30 days of March and brought in 4.8 billion U.S. dollars in revenue, with an average selling price of 51.7 dollars per barrel, the ministry said in a statement emailed to Xinhua.

According to preliminary statistics issued by the country's State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO), the April rate of oil crude exports was unprecedented since 1980s, the statement said.

"The ministry has made extraordinary efforts to increase the crude exports in a bid to compensate the delay of loading due to bad weather," the statement quoted the ministry's spokesman Asim Jihad as saying.

In 2014, Iraq exported a total of 918.114 million barrels of crude oil, earning 84.215 billion dollars in revenue.

Iraq's economy relies on oil for more than 90 percent of its revenues.

In 2010, Iraq announced its proven oil reserves had increased to 143.1 billion barrels, from the previous estimate of 115 billion barrels.