Iraq oil production on the decline

Nearly three years after the US-led invasion, it has become painfully clear that those who predicted that political instability would delay any decision on a national oil policy and that violence, often directed against the industry, would leave big international oil companies unwilling to send their personnel to Iraq, were those who got it right.

Iraq’s oil industry has gone backwards since the fall of Mr Hussein in the spring of 2003. Oil production is barely more than 2m barrels a day, a far cry from the 3.5m b/d Iraq pumped before the first war with the US in 1990 and the level industry analysts thought the country could again achieve within a couple of years of the war ending.

Financial Times