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Reuters, March 01, 2018

Ahmed Aboulenein

Iraq's crude oil exports from its southern ports on the Gulf fell to 3.426 million barrels per day (bpd) in February, the oil ministry said on Thursday, down from 3.49 bpd in January.

OPEC's second-largest producer's exports generated $5.7 billion at a price of $60.137 per barrel, oil ministry spokesman Asim Jihad said in a statement.

Kirkuk crude sales have been halted since Iraqi forces took back control of the oilfields from the Kurds in October in response to Kurdish independence referendum.

Kurdish forces took control of Kirkuk in 2014, when the Iraqi army collapsed in the face of Islamic State. The Kurdish move prevented the militants from seizing the region's oilfields.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Tuesday his government had agreed with Kurdish regional authorities to resume Kirkuk oil exports through Turkey'sCeyhan port soon but gave no precise timeline for restarting the flow.

A spokesman for Abadi told Reuters on Wednesday the agreement was "preliminary" but that the federal oil ministry and its regional counterpart still had to work out the technical details.

There has been no official Kurdish comment on the agreement.