Baghdad acknowledges that recent developments, including the security crisis, a lack of cash and a shortage of water for re-injection, will make it difficult to attain a 9mn b/d capacity target by 2020. It has come to the conclusion that 6mn b/d – almost double current federal output – may be a more realistic target.
In the last two weeks Iraqi Oil Minister ‘Adil ‘Abd al-Mahdi has twice made reference to what appears to be a new, more realistic production target for Iraq by the end of the decade. He now says Iraqi oil output capacity will likely rise to 6mn b/d by 2020 rather than to 9mn b/d. Many analysts say the latter number is unattainable within this timeframe. (CONTINUED - 3175 WORDS)
