The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) bought millions of barrels of Iraqi crude at heavy discounts, Reuters reported on 15 September, as the US-Israeli war on Iran chokes off supply routes out of the Persian Gulf.

Three people with knowledge of the deals told Reuters that ADNOC’s trading arm was the largest buyer of Iraqi crude across August and September, helping revive exports that had collapsed during the opening months of the war.

One Iraqi energy source said ADNOC agreed to take 32 million barrels in August at discounts ranging from $25 to $27 a barrel for loading across September and October.

The company then agreed to a further 40 million barrels in September, with 10 million barrels discounted by $18 a barrel and 30 million barrels discounted by $25.

A second Iraqi source said the country’s state oil marketing organization, SOMO, had set aside 32 million barrels for ADNOC in August, but the Emirati company took only 20 million barrels because of export bottlenecks and Basra Oil Company’s failure to secure enough crude.

That source put ADNOC’s September purchases at 14 million barrels so far.

Iraq has shipped about 2 million barrels per day (bpd) this month, according to Kpler data, down from 2.354 million bpd in August but well above the 1.374 million bpd recorded in July.

Emirati crude exports have climbed to 3.236 million bpd this month, up from 2.886 million bpd in August and 2.871 million bpd in July.

This comes after Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian met Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed (MbZ) on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in New Delhi, where Pezeshkian said the two sides had agreed “to put the past behind us and look to the future.”

The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) monthly report released on 11 September warned that global oil inventories are draining at record speed as the US war on Iran and the Ukraine–Russia war cut supply faster than high prices destroy demand, pushing the return of a market surplus back to 2027.

The agency now projects an average global deficit of about 1.7 million bpd for 2026, up from the 1.3 million forecast in July, with stockpiles falling in the fourth quarter rather than edging up as previously expected, and global demand growth cut by 940,000 bpd to 2.5 million bpd.