Since taking over in October 2018 as Oil Minister, Thamir al-Ghadhban has sought to walk a fine line between Iraq’s Opec compliance and the reality of its steadily ascending crude output capacity. “Let us differentiate between actual production and our efforts to build capacity,” he often says. But as capacity has increased, so has production.

Another common trope is to hint that whilst Iraq is fully committed to compliance, its over-production should be overlooked due to decades of under-production due to insecurity and economic sanctions – depriving the country of crucial development funds. (CONTINUED - 987 WORDS)