The volume of the national oil production in Iraq in October was 4.776 million barrels per day (BPD), and not 4,561,000, according to the published November 11 OPEC monthly report. These data were sent by Iraq to the cartel’s secretariat immediately after the release of the report.
Data on the extraction in the OPEC report are based on information obtained from several secondary sources (as a rule, from the pricing agencies Platts, Argus and others – Ed.).
As previously reported by the media, one of the reasons why OPEC members cannot agree on the individual production levels in the general extraction freezing terms is the position of Iraq – the second largest oil producer in OPEC after Saudi Arabia. Its representatives believe that OPEC, using secondary sources of information, underestimates the actual volume of production in the country. In addition, Iraq has claimed for itself privileged freezing conditions on a par with Iran, Libya and Nigeria, where production fell due to external constraints or military conflicts.