São Paulo – Hussein al-Shahristani, Iraqi deputy prime minister for Energy, announced on Wednesday (10) that his country plans to double oil production, currently at around 3.4 million barrels a day, up to 2015. For 2020, the Gulf country’s target is to reach over 10 million barrels a day. The information was disclosed by the site of Al Jazeera TV, from Qatar.
Shahristani stated that the Iraqi oil production policy should grant the country condition to increase the volumes in great scale. According to the deputy prime minister, the expectations are for oil sales to help increase the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 80% over three years.
Al Jazeera points out that the statement by Shahristani comes one day after a report disclosed by the International Energy Agency (IEA) which puts in doubt the Iraqi capacity to reach its production growth expectations.
According to the IEA, the country is only capable of reaching 6.1 million barrels a day in 2020, and 8.3 million barrels a day by 2035. The document also presents a scenery in which, in case of delays in investment in the oil sector, Iraq could only reach four million barrels a day by 2020 and 5.3 million in 2035.
Al Jazeera points out that production of Iraq stagnated during the war and sanctions imposed by the United States, and returned to growth only in 2010, after Baghdad established agreements with large multinationals in the sector, like BP, Exxon Mobil and Shell.
*Translated by Mark Ament
