Iraq plans to boost oil exports with Strait of Hormuz deal on Friday

Iraq is preparing to ramp up oil exports from its southern Persian Gulf ports after a US-Iran deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz is set to be signed on Friday.

The deal matters because Iraq’s crude exports through the Strait collapsed to just 10 million barrels in April 2026. For context, the monthly pre-conflict average was roughly 93 million barrels. That’s an 89% drop, the kind of supply shock that ripples through every corner of global energy markets.

What the deal looks like

The agreement takes the form of a US-Iran memorandum of understanding, announced around June 14-15. Its core provision is straightforward: reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping.

US President Trump has predicted the Strait would be “completely open” following Friday’s signing.

Iraqi oil shipments loading or exiting via Hormuz routes totaled approximately 7 million barrels in early June. That’s not a recovery yet, not by any stretch, but it represents a measurable uptick from the near-total paralysis of previous months.

Iraq’s State Organization for Marketing of Oil, known as SOMO, is positioned to increase loadings from the Basrah terminal once safe passage through the Strait is confirmed.

The backup plan through Turkey

Iraq isn’t putting all its eggs in the Hormuz basket. The country has approved plans to more than triple its exports through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline to Turkey, with targets as high as 770,000 barrels per day.

What this means for markets and crypto investors

Oil prices have already started declining as markets price in the expected return of Iraqi supply. The gap between 7 million barrels in early June and the pre-conflict average of 93 million barrels monthly is enormous.

For crypto investors specifically, the direct impact is essentially zero. There are no tokenized Iraqi oil contracts, no DeFi protocols pegged to Strait of Hormuz shipping data, and no crypto assets directly tied to this agreement. The connection, if one exists, is second-order at best: lower oil prices reduce inflationary pressure, which could influence central bank policy, which eventually filters into risk asset pricing including Bitcoin and other digital assets.

Memorandums of understanding are not treaties. They’re statements of intent, diplomatic handshakes with some structure behind them. Monitoring actual shipping volumes through the Strait in the weeks after Friday’s signing will tell us far more than the ceremony itself.

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