Iraq expects new concession areas awarded to foreign firms to boost its crude oil production capacity by nearly one million barrels per day to 6 million bpd, the country’s Oil Minister Hayan Abdul Ghani has said.

He told the official Iraqi news agency over the weekend that the fifth concession licensing round covered 13 sites while the recently announced sixth round includes the same number of concession areas that will boost Iraq’s oil and gas resources.

His figures showed Iraq sits atop 144.5 billion cubic metres of crude oil and nearly 133 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, making it one of the top 10 oil and gas powers.

“Iraq’s oil output capacity is currently estimated at 5.4 million bpd while it produces 4.43 million bpd in line with its OPEC quota,” the Minister said.

“We have ambitious plans to boost capacity to six million bpd in the next stage through concession agreements signed with global companies.”
Source: Reuters (Writing by Nadim Kawach; Editing by Anoop Menon)