Irak : prévisions de production revues à la baisse

IEA warns Iraq will miss 2017 oil target

By David Blair in London

Published: November 3 2010 16:46 | Last updated: November 3 2010 16:46

Iraq will miss its target of producing 12m barrels of oil a day by 2017 and could take another 20 years to achieve even half that level of output, says the International Energy Agency.

In a draft of its annual 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 neighbouring Iran “by soon after 2015”.

Iraq has awarded licences for the development of 11 major oilfields and, if all targets are met and investment of about $150bn takes place, production should reach 12m b/d in seven years. But the IEA stresses the mammoth nature of the task, saying that the “sheer scale of the required construction of infrastructure, coupled with political uncertainties, suggests that the expansion of capacity will be much slower”.

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 utilised and a major expansion of the shipping ports will also be needed”. Taking all this into account, the IEA projects Iraqi output of 6.5m b/d in the 2030s, compared with 2.5m b/d at present.

However, the IEA also forecasts that Iraqi production will almost double in the next decade, reaching 4.8m b/d by 2020. It adds that the country will surpass Iran in terms of crude output by “soon after 2015”.

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moinsdewatt a écrit:C 'était tellement évident que l' IRAK ne pourrait atteindre 12 millions de b/j en 2017.