The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[DewDiligence]

Iraq’s oil exports are up to ~2.5M bbl/day*, which is higher than the average level during the Sadam Hussein era:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/world/middleeast/crude-oil-output-is-soaring-in-iraq-easing-markets.html

The Iraqi government says it can add an additional 400,000 barrels a day of production by next year, and it has announced a goal of producing 10 million barrels a day by 2017, which would put it in a league with Saudi Arabia.

Note that Iraq appears to have backed off from the 12M bbl/day target cited only a few months ago (#msg-72903836). Even so, the 10M bbl/day forecast for 2017 will require a lot of things to work exactly right and is thus mostly bluster, IMO.

A more realistic forecast comes from Shell’s top man in Iraq, Hans Nijkamp, who estimates that Iraq could produce 6-10M bbl/day by early in the next decade.

*Total production for internal and external use is about 3M bbl/day.