Senior officials from the US and Iraq convened in Washington during the last week of April for the inaugural meeting of the Joint Coordinating meeting on Energy (JCC) - a bilateral forum to advance production and export of Iraq’s oil and natural gas reserves, reports The Oil Daily. The meeting was co-chaired by Carlos Pascual, the State Department’s Coordinator for International Affairs, and Iraq’s Deputy PM for Energy Husain al-Shahristani, who said, “We would like Iraq to be considered as a long-term supplier of world energy needs…and there should be no concerns of [supply shortages] in the near future.”