If Iraq could match its potential, it could definitely emerge as the game changer. Yet the billion-dollar question remains: Would Iraq ever be able to live up to the expectations?

When Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein Al-Shahristani insisted earlier the year that Iraqi output would reach 12 million bpd by 2017, many felt this was an unrealistic overstatement. Some termed it to be more of a bargaining chip, so as obtain a higher output quota within OPEC, once Baghdad begins the process back to the output quota fold.

"They are jockeying for a considerably higher output quota within OPEC," said a senior energy analyst based in Dhahran - the virtual global energy capital.

And Al-Shahristani's aspiration, though coated in diplomatic language, was apparent too - the endeavor to make Baghdad the virtual global energy capital.

OPEC output quota has remained an issue. Writing on Middle East oil reserves in Oil Drum, the history between Iran and Iraq was cited as an indication of the inherent quota war among the OPEC members.

"The Iran-Iraq War began in 1980 and ended in 1988. In 1980 Iran had 58 billion barrels and Iraq 30 billion barrels of (proven) reserves. In 1982 Iraq raised its reserves to 59 billion barrels giving it a narrow lead. In 1986 Iran retaliated with a rise to 93 billion barrels giving it a clear lead. But in 1987, Iraq retaliated with a knockout blow raising its reserves to 100 billion barrels. The war ended in 1988 and the reserves of these two countries have barley changed since."

The issue remains a hotly contested one within OPEC. And Al-Shahristani, who may hand over the reins of the Ministry of Oil to a new incumbent, once the new government in Baghdad takes office, knows it fully well.

Iraq is definitely a virgin territory, as far as the energy sector is concerned. Its potential is far from being exploited and most analysts believe, the potential out there is huge. Some term Baghdad to be the last frontier as far as easy oil was concerned.

And for the last almost two decades, Iraq has not been playing to its potential. Wars, sanctions, and insurgency, regional and sectarian infighting - all have contributed in keeping the Iraqi energy sector in shackles.

Yet an output of 12 million barrels in the next seven to eight years seems more a hypothetical figure than a really achievable one. Despite the potential, most concur, that Iraq output would be somewhere in the middle in the near future. Even the OECD energy watchdog IEA strongly feels so. The IEA is of the opinion that Iraq will miss its target of producing 12 million barrels of oil a day by 2017 and could take another 20 years to achieve even half that level of output.

In the just presented World Energy Outlook report, the IEA gives a downbeat assessment of Iraq's ambitions. However, it predicts its crude oil production will overtake that of neighboring Iran "soon after 2015".

Earlier the year, Iraq awarded licenses for the development of 11 major oil fields and, if all targets are met and investment of about $150 billion takes place, production should reach 12 mbpd in seven years. But the mammoth nature of the task, the "sheer scale of the required construction of infrastructure, coupled with political uncertainties, suggests that the expansion of capacity will be much slower" the IEA underlined. The report notes that "basic infrastructure, including road, bridges, airports and water supply, are all in need of repairs and expansion".

Meanwhile, Iraq's "existing export routes are also fully utilized and a major expansion of the shipping ports will also be needed". Taking all this into account, the IEA projects Iraqi output of 6.5 mbpd in the 2030s, compared with 2.5 mbpd at present.

That in itself would be an achievement - most agree.

Having potential is one thing and exploiting it to hilt is another. And the two often do not meet - especially when the situation is chaotic. The country, which sits on some of the world's largest oil reserves, has struggled in the past years to push its output even close to the 3 million bpd it saw in the late 1980s before it invaded Kuwait and saw a US military retaliation.

A Reuter's poll conducted in October suggested Iraq's crude oil output would rise to 2.8 mbpd by 2011 from roughly 2.5 mbpd now and reach only 4.6 mbpd by 2015.

Now it seems, realism is finally enveloping Baghdad too. Thamir Ghadhban, an Iraqi oil establishment insider, putting aside the projections painted by Al-Shahristani, admits that achieving 12 million bpd by 2017 was not feasible. A former Iraqi oil minister, Thamir Ghadhban, who served in the Iraqi cabinet after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and now advises Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki on oil, told a conference in London last week that he expected Iraq to be one of the world's leading crude oil producers by tripling its oil output by 2017.

"I expect we will reach a capacity of 8 million barrels per day within the next six-seven years," Ghadhban said. This appears more realistic and closer to the IEA projections, than Al-Shahristani's. He also underlined that in 2010 Iraq produced an average 2.35 million barrels a day, of which some 1.875 million barrels a day was exported. The rest was required to meet the domestic consumption.

Iraq definitely has a long way to go - yet the distance it will cover is far from clear. It will have a profound impact on the Peak Oil theory debate too. Yet Iraq remains to be a major unknown in painting a print out of tomorrow's energy world.