19-05-2025
Iraq pursues 6 mbpd oil expansion plan
OPEC member Iraq is pushing ahead with an ambitious plan to increase its sustainable oil output capacity to 6 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2030, a senior oil official has said.
Projects to lift capacity involve expansion of existing oilfields and development of untapped fields in various parts of the Arab country, Oil Ministry undersecretary Bassim Khudair told the official Iraqi News Agency at the weekend.
'The Ministry is pursuing a strategy to expand Iraq's production capacity to six million bpd in 2030…we believe that this is a realistic and achievable target,' he said.
Iraq, OPEC's second largest oil producer after Saudi Arabia, has pumped over four million bpd in the past year, of which around 3.5 million bpd were exported.
Capacity is estimated at below five million bpd and the expansion projects will add more than one billion bpd, officials said.
Iraq controls around 145 billion barrels of proven crude deposits, the world's fifth largest after those of Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Canada and Iran.
(Writing by Nadim Kawach; Editing by Anoop Menon)
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