Iraq Will Be Committed to OPEC+

EghtesadOnline: Iraq wants OPEC+ to take into consideration the economic and living conditions of countries when assigning quotas in oil production cuts, the country's finance minister said, as OPEC's second-largest oil producer struggles to adhere to it production limits.

News ID: ۷۵۰۲۰۸

09 June 2020

"Iraq's decision to comply with OPEC+ agreement is good and sound and we are committed to it until its expiry," Ali Allawi said in a televised press conference June 7, Reuters reported.

"But we want also to have new future rules in order to distribute this burden on countries, taking into consideration economic conditions of these countries and living standards when these amounts of cuts are implemented."

Allawi, who used to be acting oil minister in the cabinet of Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, blamed on June 2 "technical issues" for the country's failure to further cut its output and reiterated the country's commitment to the OPEC+ agreement.

Iraq pumped 4.213 million bpd in May and exported 3.63 million bpd, oil marketer SOMO (Iraqi national company responsible for marketing Iraq's oil) said June 7. The production figure was above the country's 3.592 million bpd quota for May under the OPEC+ agreement.

OPEC+ agreed on June 6 to extend its record 9.7 million bpd cut for May and June to July and mandated oil quota busters such as Iraq to over-comply with cuts in July, August and September to make up for overproduction.