Iraq to Offer New Proposals for OPEC Production Cut

Iraq will offer three new proposals at a meeting in Vienna this coming week to discuss implementing an OPEC accord to cut output, Iraq’s Oil Minister Jabbar al-Luaibi said late Sunday, in the latest sign the country is inching closer to resolving its differences with the oil organization.

The options will be consistent with OPEC policy and are designed to bolster the unity of the group, said Luaibi, who has until very recently been at loggerheads with the group over Iraq’s contribution to the reduction. He declined to give details over the proposals, The Wall Street Journal reported.

 “Our alternatives are based on other variables and will make it easier for OPEC members to make a decision,” he said.

“All of the options will be logical and in line with OPEC policy,” he added. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed in September to reduce output to help draw down a global supply glut that is weighing on oil prices, but left the details of the plan to be worked out later.

The group is holding a so-called technical meeting at their Vienna headquarters Monday and Tuesday to discuss the mechanism for implementing the September agreement. The technical meeting will prepare for OPEC’s ministerial meeting Nov. 30 in Vienna. Iraq has been ramping up its oil production for more than two years. Luaibi has said Iraq should be exempted from cutting production because it needs the revenues to prosecute a costly war against Islamic State.

But Friday, Luaibi said he is optimistic that OPEC will reach an agreement at the Nov. 30 meeting. His comments were followed by similarly positive comments from Iran, which had also been reluctant to rein in its output.

Iraq put its output at 4.77 million bpd in October and said it would not go back to below 4.7 million bpd.

"Not for OPEC, not for anybody else," said Falah al-Amri, Iraq's OPEC governor and head of the country's state marketer SOMO last month.