Iraq may still be dealing with daily acts of violence and a hugely mismanaged government but that has not stopped the country from increasing oil production levels by 20% in 2011, a number equivalent to 2.5 million barrels of production per day.
Iraq’s government currently receives 95% of its revenue from oil and governmental officials are now hoping to push that revenue upwards by 400,000 barrels per day heading into the 2013 fiscal year.
If all goes as planned Iraq hopes to further its hold on the oil market by dramatically increasing oil production to 10 million barrels per day by 2017. While 10 million barrels daily is a monumentally huge undertaking not all experts are convinced it will even be possible, the president of BP Iraq tells the New York Times :
“Nobody has yet managed to increase oil production in their country to the extent Iraq is planning to. It’s hugely ambitious, and it will take a lot of things to work correctly.”
Iraq is following right behind Saudi Arabia and Libya’s oil production recovery, all of which have worked in unison to help push oil back down to $98.43 per barrel, the lowest cost per barrel since January 2011. Those increases have also helped OPEC exceed its 30-million-barrels per day quota by 5% despite sanctions placed against Iran which have slowed oil production in the terrorist supporting country.
Iran has practically begged OPEC to cut back production however with crippling sanctions currently levied against Iran it is likely production will continue to increase in oil providing countries as Iran’s own oil sales are already down by 12% in 2012.
