"At the meeting in Beirut, we will discuss and work out in earnest the OPEC member states' proposals concerning the increase of oil production quotas to 2.3 million barrels a day," Mr Yusgiantoro said. "The OPEC members' current output is about 88 percent of their maximum capacity. We are trying to foresee what will happen if we go ahead and increase daily production by two million barrels," he said, promising that the conference participants would do their best to help bring the oil prices down.
Iraqi officials, too, expect the forthcoming OPEC summit to opt for a considerable increase in production and export amounts. Shamkhi Faraj, Director General of Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization, said in a statement that Iraq currently produces 2.7 million barrels of crude oil per day and exports about two million barrels. Before the end of this year, the country's oil output is expected to reach three million barrels a day.
Of the OPEC's eleven members, Iraq is the only one to which the production ceiling does not apply, so the country can recover and ship as much oil as its production capacities permit.
