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Iraq, May 21, 2017 
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Iraq is on track for what may be the country’s highest monthly crude exports even as the Middle East nation supports moves to extend Opec-led production cuts aimed at trimming bloated global inventories.
Vessels hauling 62mn barrels of the nation’s crude departed ports in the Gulf and Mediterranean Sea in the first half of May, according to tanker-tracking and shipping agent data. If sustained through May, the daily rate of 4.14mn barrels would exceed any month since Bloomberg began tracking shipments in January 2015. Current shipments, a partial proxy for output, would exceed sales in October which was the baseline month for the production accord.
Countries pumping more than half the world’s oil are trying to cut an excess of stored crude that’s weighing on prices by limiting their own supply. Led by the world’s biggest producers Saudi Arabia and Russia, the 24 nations party to the accord look set to extend the deal when they meet in Vienna next week. Iraqi Oil Minister Jabbar al-Luaibi said this month there’s a consensus around prolonging the deal and his country backs it.
“Iraq’s compliance to its production target was always going to be a moving target as the country was reluctant to limit production in the first place,” said Edward Bell, a commodities analyst at Dubai-based bank Emirates NBD. “The higher Iraqi volumes shows one of the flaws of the deal: the focus on production rather than exports.”
Iraq, the second-largest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, pumped 4.41mn barrels of crude a day in April, according to production estimates compiled by Bloomberg. The country produced more in each month so far this year than the 4.351mn barrels a day limit it agreed to under the Opec deal in November, according to the Bloomberg- compiled data. The production limits took effect in January, initially for a period of six months. Al-Luaibi said in March that Iraq would fully comply with its output limit in March and April.
Neighbouring Iran, Opec’s third-largest producer, also boosted the level of exports in the first half of May, ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg show. Observed crude shipments from the Gulf country rose to 2.14mn bpd in the first half of the month, up 366,000 barrels from the same period of April. Iran was allowed to raise output slightly to about 3.8mn bpd under the Opec deal.
Iraq’s commitment to Opec was that it would reduce output by 210,000 bpd. While exports are not a perfect match, they are one means by which external observers try to gauge output. Iraq doesn’t have the same capacity to store crude as some other producer nations, meaning that what’s pumped out of the ground is piped relatively quickly onto ships. Iraq produced less than 4mn bpd until June 2015, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Iraq’s export surge can partly be explained by catching up on reduced flows in April, when a damaged jetty was being repaired. Partial monthly data is subject to changes by the end of the month, with single shipments capable of shifting the barrels-a-day rate significantly. Still, the timing of the additional shipments isn’t ideal, said Emirates NBD’s Bell.
“This of course doesn’t look great coming ahead of the Opec meeting,” Bell said, adding that Saudi and Russian backing for an extension meant the deal will likely be prolonged. “Overproduction by countries like Iraq means there’s going to be more reliance on Saudi Arabia to compensate by over-cutting.”

gulf-times

 

http://iraqdailyjournal.com/story-z15319329

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History of edits:: 2017/5/22 14:15 • 24 times readable
Iraq up to its share of the planned OPEC's agreement to cut production
[Oan- follow - up] 
Oil Minister Jabbar Allaibi announced on Monday that Iraq has reduced its production as much as planned in the framework of the agreement between OPEC and non - member producers end of last year.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries [OPEC] Russia and other producers have agreed to cut production 1.8 million barrels per day for a period of six months from the first of January and Iraq agreed to its share of the reduction of the amount of 210 thousand barrels per day. 
This was followed by the President of the Iraqi oil marketing company SOMO] Falah al - Amiri speech Oil Minister on his behalf during the occasion in London that "Iraq is the second largest producer in OPEC confirms to achieve production cuts announced in recent readiness to extend the cut agreement." 
He added that Iraq is ready to meet any growth in the global demand for oil "by maintaining surplus production capacity and infrastructure development for export and use of advanced technology in the exploration and production." 
The members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other producers led by Russia , had agreed last year to cut oil production about 1.8 million barrels per day to reduce the glut of crude stocks and raise prices. 
It is due to Saudi Oil Minister Khaled Al - Faleh arrives today the capital of Baghdad and meet Allaibi to discuss the recent country agreement with Russia to extend the OPEC agreement to March 2018. 
Prime Minister Haider al - Abadi Tuesday that "Iraq is committed to reducing its production 210 thousand barrels under OPEC 's agreement and supports the extension cut production , "stressing that the stability of oil prices is important for us and Iraq with OPEC cut production to raise prices and increase our financial resources." 
holds OPEC oil ministers meeting in Vienna on Thursday to discuss the new extension and approval.
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OPEC's Worst Cheater Will Get Harder to Ignore as Curbs Falter

by 
Sam Wilkin
May 22, 2017, 7:00 AM EDT
  • Iraq will have even less impetus to cut as capacity grows
  • Market “underwhelmed” by OPEC curbs so far: Morgan Stanley

OPEC’s second biggest producer is also its biggest cheater.

And if past is prologue, that lengthens the odds the group will be able to squeeze too many more price gains out of its output cuts.

Iraq pumped about 80,000 more barrels of oil a day than permitted by Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries curbs during the first quarter. If that deal gets extended to 2018, the nation will have even less incentive to comply because capacity at key southern fields is expanding and three years of fighting Islamic state has left it drowning in debt.

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“Leaving that productive capacity idle will come with an opportunity cost that Iraq may prove reluctant to bear,” said Harry Tchilinguirian, the London-based head of commodity markets strategy at BNP Paribas SA. He’s nonetheless optimistic that global inventories will fall by year-end as members like Saudi Arabia pick up the slack for Iraq’s transgressions.

A risk, though, emerges if Iraqi compliance worsens to such an extent that other countries in the 13-member group start cutting corners too, exacerbating a global surplus that’s already erased much of the gains that unfolded after the deal was struck in November.

Brent crude tumbled below $50 a barrel this month as data showed U.S. shale producers were alive and kicking, confounding OPEC’s efforts to control the supply glut. While oil recovered losses after Saudi Arabia and Russia threw their weight behind extending the six-month output reductions, it’s still 7 percent off post-deal highs.

“A lot of market participants have been a bit underwhelmed by the impact of the cut,” Martijn Rats, an oil analyst at Morgan Stanley, said in an interview in Dubai. He says OPEC members are most likely to respect curbs if Brent trades in the $50-$60 range, with prices on either side increasing the risk of non-compliance.

 
 
 
 
 

Under the November deal, OPEC envisioned curbing 1.2 million barrels per day of output, with Iraq trimming 210,000 barrels a day to 4.351 million barrels a day. In the first quarter, Iraq met only 61 percent of its targeted cut, though compliance improved to 90 percent in April, according to OPEC data. It’s not the only straggler. The United Arab Emirates achieved just 57 percent of its cut in the first quarter, though the U.A.E. exceeded its target in April, and many non-OPEC producers including Russia also missed their goals.

 

“I doubt Iraq will cut any more in the second half than it has already,” said Robin Mills, the Dubai-based chief executive officer of consultant Qamar Energy. It may instead produce more as it completes maintenance at several fields, new ones start production and seasonal domestic consumption rises, he said. There are some signs this has already started.

Iraq’s peers are tolerating its breaches mostly because Saudi Arabia has slashed 35 percent, or 171,000 barrels a day, more than it needs to, according to OPEC data. As a result, the group met 96 percent of its target cut in the first quarter, an exceptional result given compliance with previous curbs has never before exceeded 80 percent, the International Energy Agency reported.

The stakes are a lot higher for OPEC than they used to be. Its leverage over the global market has receded just as member states like Saudi Arabia fund deficits with more and more borrowed money. That’s why producers would rather turn a blind eye to Iraq’s infractions than jeopardize a deal that both Tchilinguirian and Rats expect will eventually curtail inventories.

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It’s not unusual for Iraq to get special treatment. After the U.S. invasion in 2003, it was exempt from quotas to help it rebuild capacity devastated by war and sanctions. It only reluctantly signed the current deal, initially seeking a waiver because, in the words of Oil Minister Jabbar Al-Luaibi, it’s battling militants “on behalf of the world.”

What’s more, Iraq doesn’t have control or even knowledge of its whole oil industry. At the time of last year’s agreement, the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in the north of the country was producing one in every eight of Iraq’s barrels. The Kurds have not reported output figures since October.

 

Still, Al-Luaibi insists Iraq has followed through on its pledge to pump less. He says the market should gauge its compliance using government figures because OPEC data, drawn from six secondary sources including Platts and Argus Media, underestimated the output level used as the baseline for its production target.

The November deal put Iraq’s output at 4.561 million barrels a day, about 200,000 barrels less than its own estimates. Since then, Al-Luaibi has at times suggested the nation is assessing compliance based on exports not production, further muddying the waters on its acquiescence to the curbs.

With skeptics questioning whether OPEC cuts are deep enough to balance global supply, quota dodging risks becoming more dangerous to condone. If it really wants to confront the glut, the group should double output cuts as a “bare minimum,” Naeem Aslam, the chief market analyst at brokerage Think Markets U.K. in London, said in a May 15 note.

“This is OPEC’s problem: There is no punishment mechanism,” independent oil analyst Anas Alhajji said by phone from Houston. “A deal is one thing, implementation is another.”

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Iraq Agrees to Extend OPEC Oil Output Cuts

 

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Mira Rojkan

22/05/2017 - 23:01

 

 
Iraq Agrees to Extend OPEC Oil Output Cuts
 

LEEDS — Iraq agreed to extend the OPEC oil output cuts as part of the global efforts to increase the oil prices.

On the 25th of May, the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will meet in Vienna in order to consider whether to extend the oil output cuts agreement from December last year,  which was made between OPEC and 11 nonmember countries. The agreement is supposed to exist until June this year. 

The Oil Minister of Iraq, Jabar Ali al-Luaibi, said that after a meeting with the Saudi Oil Minister, Khaled Al-Faleh, in Baghdad, that the country agreed to extend the OPEC cuts for another nine-months period.

The organisation together with the other producers agreed to reduce the output by 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) in the first half of 2017, with a possible six-month extension. However, Riyadh and Moscow said thay the supply cuts should be extended for nine more months, until March next year. 

The cut is supposed to increase the oil prices, but despite the agreement being in force since December 2016, the prices remain below $60 per barrel.

 

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On ‎5‎/‎20‎/‎2017 at 1:25 PM, jeepguy said:

going too fill up so I can run out , and fill -up in corbin :P .....    gas gets a little easier the more south we go towards tennessee

Your right. You get past Mt. Vernon and it could be a 20 cents difference.

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OPEC price goes up despite market's downward trend

May 23 2017 11:18 AM
Oil prices down
Oil prices down

 

The price of OPEC basket of thirteen crudes stood at $51.50 a barrel on Monday, compared with $50.87 the previous Friday, according to OPEC Secretariat calculations.

The OPEC Reference Basket of Crudes (ORB) is made up of the following: Saharan Blend (Algeria), Girassol (Angola), Oriente (Ecuador), Rabi Light (Gabon), Iran Heavy (Islamic Republic of Iran), Basra Light (Iraq), Kuwait Export (Kuwait), Es Sider (Libya), Bonny Light (Nigeria), Qatar Marine (Qatar), Arab Light (Saudi Arabia), Murban (UAE) and Merey (Venezuela).

This comes as oil prices fell on Tuesday after U.S. President Donald Trump proposed the sale of half the country's strategic oil reserves, according to Reuters.

Brent crude futures LCOc1 were trading down 43 cents, or 0.8 percent, at $53.44 per barrel at 0643 GMT.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures CLc1 were at $50.71, down 42 cents, or 0.8 percent.

 

http://www.thebaghdadpost.com/en/story/10970/OPEC-price-goes-up-despite-market-s-downward-trend

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OPEC set to prolong oil cuts as delegates predict smooth meeting

 

by a46ed14a8c1d95162d7b6827eedc1639?s=80&d= Mohamed Mostafa May 23, 2017, 2:02 pm

Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih (L) speaks during a media conference with Iraqi Oil Minister Jabar Ali al-Luaibi in Baghdad, Iraq, May 22, 2017. REUTERS/Khalid al Mousily

 

 

Vienna (Reuters) OPEC will likely agree to extend production cuts for another nine months, delegates said on Tuesday as the oil producer group meets this week to debate how to tackle a global glut of crude.

OPEC’s de facto leader, Saudi Arabia, favors extending the output curbs by nine months rather than the initially planned six months, as it seeks to speed up market rebalancing and prevent oil prices from sliding back below $50 per barrel.

On Monday, Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih won support from OPEC’s second-biggest and fastest-growing producer, Iraq, for a nine-month extension and said he expected no objections from anyone else.

Saudi Arabia’s Gulf ally Kuwait said on Tuesday not every OPEC member was on board for an extension to March 2018, from the initial cut-off of June this year, but most delegates in Vienna said they expected a fairly painless meeting on Thursday.

“The Saudi oil minister’s view seems accurate and no serious objection is expected if at all,” said one delegate, who asked not to be identified as he is not allowed to speak to the media.

“No surprises,” said a second delegate.

A third source added: “I think it will be a smooth meeting to extend through until March 2018, and see what happens with U.S. shale. It will grow but there are limits.”

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries meets in Vienna on Thursday to consider whether to prolong the deal reached in December in which OPEC and 11 non-members, including Russia, agreed to cut output by about 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) in the first half of 2017.

The decision pushed prices back above $50 per barrel, giving a fiscal boost to major oil producers. But it also spurred growth in the U.S. shale industry, which is not participating in the output deal, thus slowing the market’s rebalancing.

Oil prices fell 1 percent on Tuesday LCOc1CLc1 after U.S. President Donald Trump proposed to sell half of the United States’ Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in the next 10 years as well as to speed up Alaskan exploration.

The SPR sales would not start until October 2018 and would amount to just 95,000 bpd, or 1 percent of current U.S. output.

DEEPER CUTS UNLIKELY

The first OPEC delegate said he did not believe OPEC would deepen existing cuts, unless Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies offered to take the bulk of the hit: “I still believe it is unlikely at this point.”

Saudi’s Falih said on Monday he expected the new deal to be similar to the old one, “with minor changes”.

“He (Falih) has talked to several countries including Norway, including Turkmenistan, including Egypt, and they have made signs of their willingness to join the collaboration,” Kuwait’s oil minister Essam al-Marzouq said on Tuesday.

Norway’s oil ministry said later on Tuesday it had no plan to join cuts but had a good dialogue with OPEC.

Deutsche Bank said the market had priced in a nine-month extension.

“The inclusion of smaller producing non-OPEC countries such as Turkmenistan, Egypt and the Ivory Coast would be a negligible boost, in our view,” Deutsche said. “A deepening of cuts, though, has more potential to provide an upside surprise.”

 

http://www.iraqinews.com/business-iraqi-dinar/opec-set-prolong-oil-cuts-delegates-predict-smooth-meeting/

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Economy News _ Baghdad:
 
 
 
Oil prices rose in European trading Wednesday, the sixth consecutive session, achieving further gains against the backdrop of the possibility that OPEC production cuts extend for nine months when it meets on Thursday.
 
Reuters reported that Brent contracts for July delivery at the ICE Futures Exchange in London rose 20 cents to $ 54.35 a barrel, after rising to its highest level since April 19 at $ 54.43 the previous day.
 
The meeting of oil ministers from the other major Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and producing countries in Vienna on Thursday to decide whether to extend the current production agreement until after 30 June.
 
In November last year, approved by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and 11 other countries from non-OPEC members, including Russia, to cut output by about 8.1 million barrels per day between the first of January 30-June.
 
Most market analysts expect the oil sector to extend production cuts for a period of nine months, until March 2018 instead of six months as was previously expected.
 
 
 
 
Views 120   Date Added 24/05/2017 - 12:50   Last updated 24/05/2017 - 14:01   No. Content 7611
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Wednesday, 24 May 2017 13:17
 
 
Search Bigger
 
 
 
 

Alsumaria News / Baghdad 
decided to US President, Donald Trump , take an unprecedented step at the level of the United States deal with the huge strategic reserves of oil , which is rarely resorted to only in major crises. Information indicates that Trump decided to sell half of that saved the reserve within a complex network of reservoirs and bunkers built underground. 

Previously the United States that resorted to the use of some of that inventory in 2011 during the outbreak of the revolution in Libya as well as in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina, but President Donald Trump 's budget plan refers to his intention to sell half of that reserve Silverlight . Orbit gradually, providing nearly $ 16.6 billion over the next decade.

  •  
 

The United States has girl enormous reserves of oil since the ban on the sale of the Arab oil American crisis during the 1973 war, and transformed the oil extracted revolution from oil shale United States from an oil importer to an exporter of oil, however, Washington continues to maintain that reserve which is the largest on the planet . 

Although the sales process will get the stages, but energy experts warned of negative consequences resulting from the sale of half of the strategic reserve in this way in light of the rapid changes witnessed by the world. 
Said oil analyst at the "Zhinskab" Foundation, "It is worrying a bit, it is true that the proceeds of the sale will reduce the fiscal deficit, but will increase the risk to the consumer who will pay the price for it in the end .. It seems as if the solution to get cash quickly." 

For his part, saw Mick Mylvana, Chairman of the Management and Budget Office in the White House, that the possible risks "would fall dramatically when production increases as it gets today , " but the oil expert Jason Bordov, who has previously presented his testimonies before Congress issues linked to the oil file , he warned that it will reflect a rise in the price of fuel on the US consumer. 

America currently has 688 million barrels is able to meet its fuel needs for a period of 149 days form a strategic reserve, while the energy security requirements of the International Energy Organization determines the minimum necessary reserves for each country 90 days.
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This is one of the pieces of crude oil news I have been looking for. Seems like the US strategic crude oil reserve sales hit the news about the time something significant is about to happen (or maybe it has and we just don't know it yet???!!!). With US land based shale oil easier and cheaper to extract than a few years and decades ago, the strategic oil reserve may not be as critical. The US has a huge amount of crude oil naturally occurring in land based shale. Also, the shale crude oil in the US is not located all in one place so any particular area can produce crude oil from shale if another area has been compromised (like that is going to happen - well, OK, we do have some friendly but earnest Canadian friends to the north so no tellin' what can happen???!!! :o :tiphat:). Looks like crude oil in the $50 - $60/barrel range globally is a viable scenario for US shale oil extraction.

 

Just my opinion and :twocents:

 

Go Moola Nova!

:twothumbs:

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OPEC, non-OPEC hold informal talks to nail new oil cuts

 

by 21434144ead82a08d58720e165a6a4a2?s=80&d= Nehal Mostafa May 24, 2017, 1:22 pm

OPEC organization. File photo.

 

(Reuters) OPEC and non-OPEC ministers meet for informal consultations in Vienna on Wednesday in a last-ditch bid to agree the duration of oil output cuts as they seek to clear a global stocks overhang that has pulled down the price of crude.

The top oil producer in OPEC, Saudi Arabia, favors extending the output curbs by nine months rather than the initially planned six months, to speed up market rebalancing and prevent crude prices from sliding back below $50 per barrel.

OPEC members Iraq and Algeria as well as top non-OPEC producer Russia also support a nine-month extension but some Gulf OPEC members including Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates have pointed to a need for further analysis.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries meets formally in Vienna on Thursday to consider whether to prolong the deal reached in December in which OPEC and 11 non-members agreed to cut output by about 1.8 million barrels per day in the first half of 2017.

On Wednesday, a ministerial monitoring committee consisting of OPEC members Kuwait, Venezuela, Algeria and non-OPEC Russia and Oman meets in the Austrian capital to discuss the progress of cuts and their impact on global oil supply. Saudi Arabia, which holds the current OPEC presidency, will also attend.

Several OPEC delegates said they expected the meetings on Wednesday and Thursday to be relatively painless, resulting in an output cut extension by nine months.

“I think the meeting will go smoothly,” an OPEC delegate said, referring to signs of consensus in the group including Iran, which has fought Saudi Arabia in many recent OPEC meetings.

Several delegates and ministers said they did not believe cuts could be extended to a full year.

Possible surprises could include a deepening of the cuts, but this would likely be minor because the non-OPEC producers that are expected to join the accord for the first time on Thursday, such as Turkmenistan and Egypt, are fairly small.

OPEC’s cuts have helped push oil back above $50 a barrel, giving a fiscal boost to producers. By 0750 GMT on Wednesday, Brent crude was up 0.5 percent at around $54.50 a barrel.

But the price rise has spurred growth in the U.S. shale industry, which is not participating in the output deal, thus slowing the market’s rebalancing with global stocks still near record highs.

“This (stocks decline) is a bit tricky as production cuts cause higher prices which will incentivize more production for the U.S. shale oil and reduce the impact of the production cuts. So it’s a bit cyclical,” said Sushant Gupta, research director for consultancy Wood Mackenzie.

 

http://www.iraqinews.com/arab-world-news/opec-non-opec-hold-informal-talks-nail-new-oil-cuts/

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Went to extend the reduction of oil production agreement

   
 

 
 

5/25/2017 0:00 
 
 Vienna / Follow - up to the morning  
 Kuwaiti Oil Minister Issam Al - Marzouk said on Wednesday that all options are on thetable on talks between OPEC and producers outside this week , including the deepening of the current cuts and extended for Snh.oukal Al - Marzouk told reporters in response to a question about the options and whether they include deepening cuts and extended years "all options are still open .. we will raise the recommendations of the Ministerial Council 
 tomorrow , " .oetjtma Organization of the Petroleum exporting countries (OPEC) in Vienna on Thursday to discuss the extension of the agreement reached in December, which agreed in which OPEC and 11 independent producers Including Russia on production 1.8 cut one million barrels per day in the first half of 2017 to that ISNA news agency quoted Wednesday Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh as saying that OPEC will continue to restrict its production but there is a debate between Member States on the Altmdid.oukal Zanganeh " may be three months or six or nine ".bdorha European shares had difficulty in determining the direction in early trading on Wednesday as dashing the rise of the shares of oil companies producing the effect of a decline in the sectors of mining Alsearat.otquba European stocks below the highest level in 21 months , slightly more than Osbua.uartf index Stoxx 600 a European 0.1 percent , supported by the rise of European oil and gas shares, while the Financial Times index increased Britain 's 100 index 0.1 Palmih.hobt Germany 's DAX 0.3 percent , influenced by the start of stocks trading without the right to dividends.
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Iraq, May 24, 2017 

The markets are betting that the OPEC extension is all but guaranteed after Saudi Arabia and Russia announced their intention to support a nine-month extension. Saudi energy minister Khalid al-Falih tried to put to rest any possibility of dissention. “We think we have everybody on board,” al-Falih said on Bloomberg TV. “Everybody I’ve talked to indicated that nine months was a wise decision.”

Rumors have surfaced that OPEC might even be considering deeper cuts, perhaps on the order of 2.5 million barrels per day (mb/d), which is twice as much as the current reductions. Because inventories have declined slowly, there is a greater recognition that more aggressive action might be needed to bring the oil market back into balance.

But even as oil bulls – and U.S. shale drillers, no doubt – salivate at the possibility of steeper cuts from OPEC, there is at least one country that could derail those efforts: Iraq. OPEC’s second largest producer was one of the last holdouts in the lead up to the original six-month deal. Iraqi officials hesitated at cooperating with OPEC to reduce output because it argued that its multi-year war with the Islamic State should exempt it from any production limits, just as security problems in Nigeria and Libya were cited as justification for allowing an exemption for those two countries.

In addition, Iraq disputed the data OPEC used in calculating the production limits, which it said underestimated Iraq’s actual production levels. Iraqi officials argued they were being asked to cut too deep based on disputed data.

Even though were able to move past those disagreements, Iraq became a straggler when it came time for implementation. In the first quarter, Iraq produced 80,000 bpd more than the agreed upon production limit of 4.351, according to Reuters. As of April, Iraq was still above its cap by some 20,000 bpd, based on OPEC’s secondary sources data. Moreover, because the agreement is a six-month average, even if Iraq brought its output down to the target level for May and June, that would not mean it will have achieved compliance – Iraq would have to cut significantly below that level in order to bring its six-month average down sufficiently. So, it is safe to say Iraq will not meet its commitment.

But that issue is rather minor compared to the task at hand for al-Falih in trying to keep Iraq on board going forward. The reason is that Iraq has new production capacity set to come online in the third and fourth quarter of 2017. The bulk of Iraq’s production comes from its southern oil fields in and around Basra, where several major international companies operate, including BP, Royal Dutch Shell, ExxonMobil, Lukoil and CNPC. Production from these southern oil fields could actually increase as companies' complete maintenance and bring some new projects online. 'We achieved this great achievement of 4 million barrels per day ... middle of 2016, and now we have climbed up and we are reaching about 5 million barrels per day beginning of second half of this year,' Iraq’s oil minister Jabbar Al-Luaibi said in March at the CERAWeek Conference in Houston.

An extraordinary metal is about to enter a super-cycle as demand is rapidly increasing and supply is vanishing. One small company has positioned itself to profit hugely from the coming price shock.

“Leaving that productive capacity idle will come with an opportunity cost that Iraq may prove reluctant to bear,” Harry Tchilinguirian, head of commodity-markets strategy at BNP Paribas SA, told Bloomberg.

Reports surfaced this week that Iraq was insisting that it would not agree to anything more than a six-month extension, resisting Saudi Arabia’s pleas for an extension through the first quarter of 2018. However, Saudi energy minister al-Falih flew to Baghdad to do some arm-twisting, and as of May 22, he seems to have convinced his Iraqi counterpart to sign on. On the eve of the OPEC summit, there now appears to be few barriers to an official endorsement of a nine-month extension. But that does not mean that Iraq will comply. So far it has fallen short of 100 percent compliance, a fact that Saudi Arabia is willing to overlook in order to keep the deal from falling apart. Indeed, Saudi Arabia has made up for Iraq’s foot-dragging, cutting deeper than required. “This is OPEC’s problem: There is no punishment mechanism,” independent oil analyst Anas Alhajji told Bloomberg. “A deal is one thing, implementation is another.” Recent data shows that even as Iraq appears ready to sign on to a nine-month extension, its exports are on the verge of setting a record for the month of May.

Moreover, the Iraqi oil minister has long felt that it received the short end of the stick form the original agreement in November. Fellow OPEC members Nigeria and Libya were given exemptions and Iran was allowed to increase production. Iraq, meanwhile, was forced to make the second largest cut. This, plus the oil minister’s past comments about ramping up production this year, should make oil watchers skeptical about Iraq’s willingness to keep production in line with the agreement for the next nine months.

oilprice

 

http://iraqdailyjournal.com/story-z15340528

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Its time for Iraq to take the lead in declaring oil independence. Open the spigot and let it pour. Share that wealth with the Iraqi people and revalue the Dinar. Show the rest of the Arab world what real financial freedom is all about!  You get a Camel and you get a Camel and so on.

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2 came

7 minutes ago, Calijim said:

Its time for Iraq to take the lead in declaring oil independence. Open the spigot and let it pour. Share that wealth with the Iraqi people and revalue the Dinar. Show the rest of the Arab world what real financial freedom is all about!  You get a Camel and you get a Camel and so on.

 

LOL. 2 camels in every garage...uh, err...tent!!!

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