Oil production hit by violence in Iraq; EU and US rules may restrict heavy crude imports

摘要

The departure of the last American troops-apart from a handful of embassy guards-from Iraq did nothing to restore stability there. A series of bomb attacks killed many civilians and there were attacks on two oil export pipelines near Basrah (see "Focus"). The pipeline bombings-which occurred as the troop withdrawals were still in progress-temporarily halved production at the 1.4mn bpd Rumailah field. The Oil Minister, Abd al-Karim al-Luaibi, meanwhile declared that Iraq's oil production would rise by 0.7 mn bpd, or nearly 26%, between 2011 and 2012. Baghdad and Arbil reached an agreement to increase the volume of crude oil exported from fields in Iraqi Kurdistan by 75,000-175,000 bpd. ExxonMobil came under pressure from Baghdad to reconsider an exploration contract signed with the Kurdistan Regional Government (see "The Month in Brief," December 2011).