Iraq: Iraq Could Review Oil-Supply Plans as Price Collapse Deepens

Dec 17, 2014 | Grant Smith, Businessweek
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Iraq said a collapse in crude oil and the cost of fighting Islamic State militants could force the country to review its plans to boost production, highlighting the risks this year’s price plunge poses to new supplies.

“It may be necessary to revisit our ambitious plans for the next five years,” Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister Rowsch Shaways said at a conference in London today, without specifying what measures the country might take. The country’s semi-autonomous Kurdish area will drive up output and exports in the next several months, an official from the region said.

Iraq is supposed to add more barrels by the end of this decade than any other member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. The 12-nation group decided on Nov. 27 to maintain output amid a global surplus, prompting speculation that it’s willing to let crude slide to a level that would slow U.S. production, which is at a three-decade high.