Iraq's daily oil output falls short of Cheney's predictions
May 19, 2004
New York - Iraq's daily oil output in the year since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein has fallen as much as a million barrels short of the 3 million barrels that US vice-president Dick Cheney predicted.
Cheney, who for five years headed Houston-based Halliburton, the largest oilfield services provider, said in April last year that Iraq should be able to produce 2.5 million to 3 million barrels a day, "hopefully by the end of the year".
Iraq in December pumped 1.98 million barrels a day, based on Bloomberg data.
The highest output since the war started was 2.38 million barrels a day in March, or 4 percent below pre-war levels.
"The strategy was to have another country be able to provide more crude that was competitive to Saudi Arabia," said Kamel al-Harami, former president of Kuwait's Q8 brand of petrol stations in Europe and Thailand. "We're in the second year and we're just not seeing it."
Recent violence in Iraq, including stepped-up attacks on oil installations and the assassination yesterday of Izzedine Salim, the leader of the Iraqi governing council, has sowed doubt about the reliability of Iraqi supplies.
That has helped push the prices of crude oil and petrol futures to the highest in two decades of New York trading.
Crude oil surged 43 percent in the past year to a record $41.55 (R278) a barrel on Monday, the highest since the futures contract began trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange 21 years ago.
An Iraqi delegation will travel to the UN tomorrow to demand full control of the country's oil revenues and a cut in war reparations imposed on Iraq.
"Iraq must have a say in the next UN resolution," deputy foreign minister Hamid Bayati said yesterday.
"We will negotiate on the basis that Iraq must be fully in charge of its resource wealth and the 5 percent of oil revenues we pay must be reduced further," he said in reference to reparations for the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Iraq has paid about $20 billion of reparations of an estimated $300 billion. A UN resolution a year ago reduced war reparations from 15 percent of oil proceeds to 5 percent.
Bayati said Iraq should not be held accountable now for wars waged by Saddam in which the people had no say.
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