OPEC’s second-largest producer should be exempted from cutting production due to the internal conflict with Islamic State (IS) militants, oil minister Jabber Al-Luaibi has said in Baghdad.
Iraq currently produces more than the 4.7mn barrels per day (bpd) it pumped in September, and output could rise still higher as the government urges international companies to boost production at its fields, he said.
The minister disputed OPEC’s figures that peg Iraqi output at less than 4.2mn bpd.
“We are with OPEC policy and OPEC unity,” Al-Luaibi said. “But this should not be at our expense.”
A meeting in Algeria last month of the group’s 14 members stretched to seven hours as Iraq argued over the level of production that should be used as a baseline for setting quotas.
OPEC is trying to woo other producers to join in the group’s first output cuts in eight years, a policy shift that members agreed to in Algiers.
Iraq became the fourth OPEC member – after Iran, Nigeria and Libya – to seek an exemption from output limits. The group aims to decide on individual levels when it meets on November 30 in Vienna.
Three oil fields in northern Iraq could produce at least 69,000 bpd if they are recaptured from Islamic State and if an export deal with the semi-autonomous Kurdish region holds together, according to Farid Al-Jadir, director general of state-run North Oil Co.
Iraq pumped 4.228mn bpd at fields controlled by the federal government, deputy oil minister Fayyad Al-Nima said alongside Al-Luaibi in Baghdad.
Production at fields operated by the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq stood at 546,000 bpd last month, he said.
Exports totalled 3.871mn bpd in September, Falah Al-Amri, the head of the state oil marketing company known as SOMO, said at the conference.
“We have passed 4.7mn bpd,” Al-Amri said. “We are not going back. It’s a question of sovereignty.”
