Iraq's latest plans to boost oil output are moving in the right direction, the International Energy Agency's director for energy markets and security told Dow Jones Newswires Thursday.
"I was yesterday in Vienna and the Iraqi minister announced very ambitious plans in terms of developing their production level in the coming years," Didier Houssin said in an interview on the sidelines of a gas conference in Paris.
"They're certainly moving in the right direction," he said.
"The starting point is that the Iraqi potential is huge," he said, adding: "What is interesting is they also want to force investment with international oil companies and they want to give access to this potential to develop it in a short period of time."
Iraq is considering production-sharing agreements for oil exploration blocks, the country's oil minister, Hussein al-Shahristani, said Wednesday.
Production-sharing agreements - which involve oil companies getting a share of oil production in exchange for covering costs - are controversial in Iraq as they are seen by many as giving too much of the country's resources to foreign companies.
The Iraqi minister also said that due to the interest in two recent bidding rounds, it is now possible that Iraq could reach output of 6 million barrels of oil a day in five to six years - earlier than a 10-year target set in 2008.
The IEA is an energy watchdog representing consumers.