Khairat: Iraq does not plan to lower its ambitious 12 million barrel per day oil output capacity goal or to redo contracts with oil firms over their plateau targets, Deputy Prime Minister Hussain Al Shahristani said yesterday.
Al Shahristani's comments followed market speculation that Iraq might have to officially slash its longstanding production capacity target.
Analysts are sceptical that Iraq can reach the goal within its six-year time frame, or that the market would want or need that much production from the Opec member.
No intention
"There is no intention at all to renegotiate the contracts," Al Shahristani told Reuters at the launch of a power plant project outside the city of Karbala.
"We are contracted for announced production capacity of around 12 million barrels per day," he said. "But how much we will produce, really, this depends on the international market situation and the market demand."
Iraq signed a series of deals with international oil companies to restore its dilapidated oilfields and ramp up capacity to give it the money it needs to rebuild after years of dictatorship, war and international economic sanctions.
It hopes to build capacity to 12 million bpd within about six years, which would vault it into the upper echelon of global producers, potentially rivalling world leader Saudi Arabia.
Iraq currently has no Opec output quota.
Al Shahristani also said the oil ministry had reached a final draft contract on a long-delayed $12 billion (Dh44 billion) project to capture associated gas at southern oilfields and had sent the deal to Iraq's cabinet for approval.
A senior oil official had said two weeks ago that legal hurdles were delaying the deal with Royal Dutch Shell and Mitsubishi to capture some of the 700 million cubic feet of natural gas that Iraq flares at its oilfields every day.
