Iraq regards the U.S.’s refusal to extend waivers for countries importing oil from Iran as a tacit endorsement for it to pump its own oil to the maximum. This dovetails neatly into its Oil Ministry’s internal targets – conveyed last week to OilPrice.com by a source who works closely with the Ministry – of increasing crude oil production to at least 6.2 million barrels per day (bpd) by the end of 2020 and at least 9 million bpd by the end of 2023. At around the same time, the Oil Ministry announced that it had agreed preliminary terms with ExxonMobil and PetroChina to rollout the South Integrated Project (SIP), an important infrastructure project that should result in some degree of output increase. This deal, though, is far from certain, said the Iraqi source, and – critically – does not necessarily include the contract for the full-scale Common Seawater Supply […]