Abdul-Kareem Luaibi said the timeframes agreed with oil companies to reach output targets could be extended to 13 to 14 years from six to seven years under their existing contracts.
“We are studying several scenarios for more economic production rates, we can reduce the production and increase the period to reach the plateau targets,” Luaibi said in Vienna.
“For example, instead of producing 12 million bpd for seven years, we can produce eight million bpd for 13 or 14 years.”
Iraq signed a series of deals with international oil firms, after two bidding rounds in 2009, to try to boost its output capacity to 12 million bpd by 2017 from around 2.7 million bpd currently.
Since then many analysts have questioned whether the country can achieve the 12 million bpd target in the foreseeable future because of infrastructure constraints. They say 6 million-7 million bpd is a more realistic goal.
The contracts are production driven, and oil companies get fees for each barrel produced.
Any deep cut to Iraq’s overall target could mean the deals would need to be adjusted to accommodate lower production plateaus, which would mean lower returns for oil companies.
Luaibi said the ministry had yet to approach oil companies over renegotiation, which would be done after the ministry draws up a final plan with its consultants.
“In general, the oil companies will not be hurt ... We can increase the period to reach the plateau targets to 13-14 years,” he said.
