Baghdad blurs the picture

Iraq wants the deal to work. But that may not translate into an actual drop in supply

Iraq's oil minister Jabar al-Luaibi says his country's oil production was trimmed by 160,000 barrels a day at the start of January and that the reduction would reach the required Opec level of 210,000 b/d by the end of the month. The minister reckons general compliance by Opec and non-Opec states will have an accumulative effect, saying Iraq is "hoping for a better price. We are looking at $65/b, something like that." According to Opec, Iraq's baseline production level - against which it was to make its cuts - was 4.56m b/d, meaning that the January output figure should be 4.35m b/d. The problem, however, with the whole issue of Iraqi oil data is that it has become, to put it mildly, somethi