Ali Saeedlou, assistant to the Iranian president for International Affairs, asserted to Al-Monitor that the volume of commercial trade with Iraq would increase to $14 billion, exceeding last year's volume of $12 billion. He explained that his government had formed a committee that seeks to reinforce economic cooperation between the two countries, called the Economic Growth Committee of Iran and Iraq.
The Iraqi Council of Representative’s Oil and Energy Committee regarded Iran’s statements as coming at an inappropriate time, as Iraq finds itself in need of a great deal of support in different fields.
Qassem Mohammed, a member of the committee, told Al-Monitor, “Talk of increased oil exports is still mere ink on paper. We have not seriously taken on the issue.” He explained, “The Ministry of Oil did not fulfill its promises to increase crude oil exports to fill in the gap in the federal government’s budget, 92% of which is reliant on these oil exports.”
“The increase in exports will surely reflect positively on Iraq. Neighboring countries, including Iran, should understand Iraq’s need for this increase to develop its infrastructure that is nearly in its worst condition in years because of insufficient oil exports,” Mohammed added. He called on neighbors to “support Iraq instead of pressuring it, as other countries have done to it in years past.”
He brought up that by developing its oil fields and making them available to international companies, Iraq seeks to increase its production to at least 11 million barrels per day over the next six years, or 12 million barrels after adding the amounts produced in other fields.
Iran Wary of Iraqi Oil Export Plans | Iraq Business News http://t.co/lFdQxN48At
We, “the Iraqis” only have few words to these Iranian minions and their other idiots (Iran’s oil minister “Zangeneh” and Iranian Deputy Ambassador to Iraq “Aziz Salihi”)
First of all, why are these ultra nationalist (Shah of Iran’s era) Iranians only picking on IRAQ? Why don’t you go after other countries around the world (who are currently producing oil) and tell them they are harming Iran as well by producing oil at high levels (so harmless to Iran) such as Russia (10.9 million barrels of crude per day), Saudi Arabia (9.9), USA (8.4), China (4), Canada (3.6) and others like Venezuela (3), Brazil (2.6) and Nigeria (2.5)?? Maybe these two misinformed Iranian stooges have short memory and we need to remind them and EVERYONE’s else how Iran benefited after the USA and other western powers put devastating sanctions on Iraq for well over 12 years while Iran reached oil production levels of (4 million barrels of crude per day) and profited immensely on behalf of the misery of millions of Iraqis for decades since 1991!!
Second, Iraq did not put these sanctions on Iran, the US did, so the IRI have no right to punish Iraq or dictate Iraq’s oil (or Iraq’s other energy) policies and blame anything on Iraq (Iraq is justly and only looking after Iraq’s people and its own god given rights and interests)…
Third, if it was for the Iraqis, we would definitely and positively pass laws in the Iraqi parliament to boycott all Iranian products (from low grade cement to all sorts of other bad quality products) from entering Iraq and stop, prevent and block awarding lucrative projects to 2-bit Iranian companies which, BTW, are the nastiest companies representing the worst kind of business models around the world!!
And one final note regarding Iraq’s future oil production levels… Maybe Iraq will try to reach (7 million barrels of crude per day) by 2017 (and that is a big IF) but Iraq will abide by OPEC exporting quotas allocated for Iraq currently set at (4.5 million barrels of crude per day) while the remaining and extra (2.5~3) will be needed inside Iraq for domestic consumption (for the next 20 years to come) to rebuild Iraq and reconstruct a country that see nothing but wars and destructions (under dictatorship rule) for the past 30 years and Iraq needs the help and support of ALL civilized countries and friendly nations to reach that decent and peaceful goal (unlike the Iranians who are clearly showing jealousy and espousing hatred by making ignorant statements such as the ones made above by these TWO STUPID Iranians we read in this article!!