Iraq Targets Oil Output of 10 Million Barrels a Day Without Setting a Date
Key Facts
Iraq is targeting an increase in oil production to 10 million barrels a day, the prime minister’s office said on November 5, without specifying when that level would be reached. The statement followed a meeting between Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi and representatives of a consortium working on a proposed project to transport Iraqi crude by pipeline to ports on the Mediterranean and Red seas, Shafaq News reported. The announcement puts a figure on the country’s ambition to increase production but does not attach a timeline. Al-Zaidi said the proposed pipeline would increase revenues, support development and strengthen Iraq’s role in global energy supplies. The announcement thus links the production target to an export project aimed at expanding routes for transporting Iraqi crude to markets.
Al-Zaidi pledged to remove obstacles facing the project and reduce red tape for foreign companies, according to Shafaq News. The pledges come in the context of a project requiring the participation of a consortium and foreign companies, while the statement gave no details on implementation steps or their timing. The prime minister said the pipeline would increase Iraq’s revenues and support development, linking the project to an economic impact beyond oil transport. He also linked it to strengthening the country’s role in global energy supplies, a goal that, in the context of the announcement, depends on advancing the project and overcoming the obstacles he cited. The statement gave no estimate of the additional revenues or the volume the pipeline might carry.
October data provide context on Iraq’s export levels before the target was announced: crude exports rose 9.5% to 3.35 million barrels a day, Shafaq News reported, citing Bloomberg. The report attributed the increase in shipments to higher volumes transported through southern terminals and the northern pipeline to Turkey. These figures describe October exports, while the target of 10 million barrels a day concerns oil production and has no specified timeline. Exports from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait combined rose 10% from September to 15.53 million barrels a day in October, according to the same report. That total places the increase in Iraqi exports within a broader rise in shipments from the four countries during the period.
Available energy data point to a gap between recorded production levels and announced plans. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated that Iraq produced an average of 4.4 million barrels a day of crude in 2024, excluding condensates. The report said the oil ministry planned to raise crude production capacity to 7 million barrels a day by 2029. Those figures refer to actual production in 2024 and planned production capacity, while the prime minister’s office announced a target of 10 million barrels a day without a timeline. The comparison helps place the new target alongside earlier levels and plans, without the November 5 announcement specifying how or when the increase would be achieved.
On Iraq’s production capacity within OPEC, the country’s representative to the organization said in January 2026 that its production ceiling had risen to 4.273 million barrels a day. He added that increasing the quota requires developing transportation, storage and export facilities, and linked any future increase to an international assessment of maximum production capacity. This highlights the importance of infrastructure for transporting crude alongside the production target and the pipeline project discussed by al-Zaidi. But it is a separate statement from the November 5 meeting, and the prime minister’s announcement did not establish a direct link between the proposed project and the OPEC ceiling. The ceiling figure refers to the production quota cited by Iraq’s representative, not October exports of 3.35 million barrels a day.
OPEC and its allies were scheduled to meet on November 29 to discuss production targets for 2027, alongside an assessment of member countries’ production capacity, Shafaq News reported. The planned meeting comes after Baghdad announced its target of 10 million barrels a day, while the date for reaching that goal remains unspecified in the November 5 statement. The upcoming discussion concerns production targets for 2027, while the Energy Information Administration report refers to an earlier Iraqi plan to raise production capacity to 7 million barrels a day by 2029. The announcement did not say whether Iraq’s target would be raised at the OPEC meeting or how the production-capacity assessment might affect it. The November 29 meeting therefore remains the next specified date in the available information for discussions of production targets and the organization’s members’ capacity.