CAN THE GROUP MAINTAIN UNITY AS IRAQ ISSUE LOOMS?
Conflict of interests can hamper consensus within the group and reduce levels of compliance with agreed curbs. Saudi Arabia tends to be a US ally and a price moderate. US foes Iran and Venezuela have large populations, large spending plans and rely heavily on oil exports for funding. They tend to favour higher prices, but to leave the work of compliance to other members of the group as they maximise their own output to try to maximise revenue in the immediate term. Iraq has long been excluded from output targets because of the damage to its infrastructure of years of conflict. Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said in June the right time to discuss an output quota for Iraq would be in three years once the country’s production has reached 4 million bpd from roughly 2.5 million bpd now. Any recalculation of targets would be very complex. Output targets are calculated partly on the basis of oil reserves. Iraq has slightly smaller oil reserves than neighbour Iran, which has a produ
