Fragility in Iraqi oil

Iraq is heading towards 2017 overwhelmed by security, political and economic uncertainties, any of which could negatively affect the oil sector

As Opec's ministers met in Algiers in late September, Iraq offered a rare discordant note. The group struck a deal-but even before the markets had digested the news, Iraq's new oil minister Jabbar al-Luaibi had some quibbles. He rejects the third-party production data on which Opec relies to make its output calculations, insisting that they consistently underestimate Iraqi flows. Unless Opec fixed the problem, he said, "then we say we cannot accept this, and we will ask for alternatives". Iraq's government says its total production-from fields in federal areas and those in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region-is 4.7m barrels a day, with the potential to rise to 5m b/d. Independent estimates pu