Iraq is confident of reaching its pre-war crude oil output capacity of three million barrels per day (bpd) by the end of the year, oil minister Thamir Ghadhban told a news conference on Sunday.
"Our actual production capacity is very close to the pre-war sustainable capacity," he said." We are confident that by year-end we will be producing around three (million bpd)."
In his first news conference since being appointed oil minister last week, Ghadhban said Opec member Iraq did not support an excessively high oil price despite its hefty $120 billion in foreign debts.
"We do not encourage or ask for very high prices," he said. "Right now we have a very heavy debt burden but at the same time we are thinking of international relations with consuming nations."
Rising Iraqi production could raise the question of assigning Iraq an Opec quota, which the country has lacked since before the 1990-1991 Gulf war, when it was 3.14 million bpd.
But Ghadhban side-stepped that sensitive issue. He would only say that Iraq would seek "the maximum possible" and the "fairest possible".
Aside from Iraq's production moves, the international oil industry is keeping a close eye on oil production and exploration contract openings in the country, which has the world's second largest reserves after Saudi Arabia.
"As far as investment is concerned, these are major subjects. These have to be discussed by the future elected government but we are keeping the dialogue and we welcome them to come to Iraq," said Ghadhban.
"We hope that it will not be too long before we reach an amicable mechanism on arrangements between us and them to come and work in Iraq," he said.
Iraq is scheduled to hold elections in January of 2005.
Aside from oil pipeline sabotage that has hurt production, Ghadhban also faces a sharp rise in domestic demand for oil products. Iraq has witnessed a big influx in automobiles that have driven up gasoline imports because dilapidated refineries lack the capacity.
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