Iraq stopped oil production from two southern fields with a combined capacity of almost half a million barrels a day.
The shutdowns curtail the ability of OPEC’s second-largest member to pump crude just as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and tight supplies globally send prices soaring, according to Bloomberg on Monday.
Work at Nasiriya, capable of supplying as much as 80,000 barrels a day, was halted on Saturday because of protests that prevented staff from reaching the site, according to a statement from Thiqar Oil Co.
That followed the closure of the huge West Qurna-2 field on Feb. 21 for maintenance. The field, which can pump 400,000 barrels a day, is scheduled to resume normal operations on March 14, though the companies that run it are trying to restart output sooner.
Iraq pumped 4.16 million barrels a day in January, less than its target of almost 4.3 million, Bloomberg reported earlier this month.
Iraq has also halted a further 80,000 bpd of oil production and exports from its Nassiriya oil field due to worker safety concerns, Iraq’s state-owned Dhi Qar Oil Company said on Friday.
University graduates have engaged in violent protests in the southern Dhi Qar province in recent days to demand jobs.
Iraq’s 480,000 bpd of crude outages make up nearly 0.5 percent of global oil supply and come at a fragile time for oil markets.
