DUBAI (AFP) — Iraq is aiming to raise its oil output to three million barrels per day (bpd) next year and to six million bpd within a decade, Oil Minister Hussein Shahristani said on Saturday.
The plan is to hike production "from just under 2.5 million bpd to three million bpd by 2008 and 3.5 million bpd by the end of 2009," Shahristani told the opening session of an "Iraq Petroleum 2007" conference in the United Arab Emirates.
Iraq then hopes to boost output to six million bpd 10 years from now, Shahristani said.
He said that to reach the targets, Iraq needed to improve its export infrastructure by building new terminals in the Gulf as well as new pipelines to neighbouring countries, including to the east, to Iran.
Iraq's oil infrastructure has been hit by decades of under-investment as a result of successive Gulf wars, 13 years of UN sanctions and the rampant insecurity that has followed the US-led invasion of 2003.
On gas, Shahristani said the medium-term aim was to increase existing reserves of 3.1 trillion cubic metres (109.5 trillion cubic feet) to 4.6 trillion cubic metres (162.4 trillion cubic feet) through intensified drilling efforts.
He said he was confident that a long delayed oil and gas bill would be approved by parliament in its coming session.
"I think the law is going to be passed. Of course, there will be some adjustments (and) amendments ... There is a sufficient majority in parliament to pass the law," he said.
The heavily contested bill includes measures to open up the long state-controlled hydrocarbons sector to foreign investment as well as reassure all of Iraq's warring communities that earnings will be shared fairly across the country.
Iraq's oil reserves are largely in the Kurdish north and the Shiite south, and Sunni Arabs from the central and western regions have expressed fear that they could lose out if growing calls for a less centralised form of government are heeded.
Washington regards passage of the draft legislation as key to efforts to woo the disenchanted Sunni Arab elite away from the anti-US insurgency and back into mainstream politics.
But the measures to loosen state control of Iraq's main natural resource have drawn strong opposition from nationalists and left-wingers who charge that Washington is abusing its military presence to plunder the country.
Shahristani insisted that foreign investment was vital if Iraq was to realise the vast potential of its oil and gas wealth.
"Some 50 discovered fields await developers," he said, adding that Iraq aims to intensify exploration to increase its proven reserves from the current 115 billion barrels to 160 billion.
Washington has been pinning its hopes for recovery in Iraq's war-ravaged economy on a takeoff in the oil and gas sector.
An August report from the International Monetary Fund said that growth had been slower than expected "mainly because the expected expansion of oil production has not materialised."
Shahristani insisted that a drawdown under way in coalition troop numbers around Iraq's key southern oilfields and export terminals would not affect their security.
"The pullout of the British troops or any other troops has no impact on our oil industry, simply because these troops have never been protecting our installations," he told reporters.
"American or British or any other troops have never been protecting our oilfields or installations... We have our own protection."
Britain announced on Saturday that 250 of its remaining 5,500 troops in southern Iraq would be withdrawn over the next four weeks with another 250 to follow them in the coming months.
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