Iraq is only likely to achieve around half its target of growing oil production to 12 million barrels a day in the next six or seven years, Cambridge Energy Research Associates, which is part of energy consultancy IHS, said Wednesday.
Iraq
is
only likely to achieve around half its target of growing oil production to 12
million barrels a day in the next six or seven years, Cambridge Energy Research
Associates, which is part of energy consultancy IHS, said Wednesday.
IHS CERA expects
Iraq
's oil
output to hit 4.3 million barrels a day by 2015 and 6.5 million barrels a day
in 2020, compared with around 2.4 million barrels a day currently.
"Political, security, operational and infrastructure challenges in the
country, along with a likely shortage of skilled personnel, are likely to hamper
progress" towards the 12 million barrel a day target, said CERA's Middle
East Director Bhushan Bahree in a statement.
However, meeting CERA's more modest expectations "would still constitute a
significant expansion" and have implications for the Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Countries and the regional power balance, he said. If
rising production causes OPEC to raise
Iraq
's
output quota above that of
Iran
it
could generate tension in the group, he said.
The Iraqi government has signed contracts with major oil companies including BP
PLC (BP), Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB), ExxonMobil Corp. (XOM), Eni SpA (E) and
China National Petroleum Corp. to redevelop operational oil fields that have
suffered from years of neglect and underinvestment. It aims to boost oil output
by 250,000 barrels this year.
The consortium to develop
Iraq
's
largest field, Rumaila, led by BP, awarded this week $600 million worth of
contracts for drilling and other work on the field, aimed at boosting its
output. BP aims to make Rumaila the world's second most productive oil field,
after
Saudi Arabia
's
Ghawar field, by 2015.
"
Iraq
's
expansion timetable appears extraordinarily ambitious in comparison to the
recently completed capacity increase in
Saudi
Arabia
," said Bahree. "
Saudi
Arabia
has significant security and
infrastructure advantages yet it took between four and five years to expand its
net output capacity by some 2 million barrels a day.
Iraq
will
certainly be challenged to match this pace, much less exceed it."
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