Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 27
By Aygun Badalova - Trend:
Oil production in Iraq will amount to 3.3 million barrels per day in the fourth quarter of 2014 compared to 3.1 million barrels per day in the third quarter of the year, U.S. bank JP Morgan's analysts said in a report obtained by Trend.
In the first quarter of this year the country's oil output stood at 3.2 million barrels per day, in the second - at 3.3 million barrels per day, the analyst said in a report.
The highest level of the Iraq's oil production from January-September 2014 was observed in February - at 3.5 million barrels per day, the lowest - in January at 3 million barrels per day, said the report.
Iraq has the fifth largest proven crude oil reserves in the world. Iraq revised its estimate of proven oil reserves from 115 billion barrels in 2011 to 141 billion barrels as of January 1, 2013, according to the Oil and Gas Journal.
The majority of the known oil and gas reserves in Iraq form a belt that runs along the eastern edge of the country. Iraq has five super-giant fields (over 5 billion barrels) in the south that account for 60 percent of the country's proven oil reserves. An estimated 17 percent of oil reserves are in the north of Iraq, near Kirkuk, Mosul, and Khanaqin, according to the report of the Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Iraqi crude oil production averaged 3 million barrels per day in 2012, and Iraq passed Iran as OPEC's second largest crude oil producer at the end of the year, the EIA said.