Iraq prepares to increase oil production

Iraq has announced that it is preparing to increase its production of crude oil of 500,000 barrels every day so as to reach 3.5 million barrels every day by the end of this year.

The Iraqi oil ministry secretary Faez Shahine told the Iraqi weekly al-Itihad that the ministry is working on maintaining the oil fields and the new drilled wells in various areas of the country for increasing oil production.

Shahine held the UN sanction committee on Iraq responsible for the delay in spare parts contracts needed to repair the Iraqi oil industry which was violently struck during the Gulf war in 1991, noting that the food for oil contract permits Iraq to buy annually oil spare parts and equipment at a cost estimated at USD 1.2 billion.