Iraq’s Oil Minister, Ihsan Abdul-Jabbar, announced last week that the country plans to increase its oil production capacity to 8 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2029, compared to current production of around 3.8 million bpd that factors in OPEC-mandated cuts. Based on its vast oil resources there is no insurmountable reason why this output level should not be attained by that time or indeed even the 9 million bpd or 11 million bpd that were posited by the International Energy Agency in its 2012 production scenario analysis for Iraq. Even the lower of these two figures would allow Iraq to overtake Saudi Arabia as the number one oil producer in the Middle East, with the Kingdom producing just 8.17 million bpd on average from 1973 to this year. To reach these new output goals, Iraq announced last week initiatives including boosting the production from the key field of […]