Iraqi officials are running against the clock to find outlets for large volumes of refined products before storage capacity fills up. The Strait of Hormuz closure cut off Iraq’s primary export outlet, and it needs to keep its refineries operational to supply domestic demand and provide an outlet for crude production to allow for continued output of some associated gas output (MEES, 6 March).
The problem is that refinery output of some products, such as fuel oil and naphtha, exceeds domestic demand and once excess volumes fill up storage tanks, refinery throughputs would have to be curtailed, limiting gasoline output. Baghdad hopes that by trucking fuel oil and naphtha volumes to Syria and Jordan it can prevent this from happening and generate some revenues in the process. (CONTINUED - 1182 WORDS)
