A tremendous amount of digital, and real, ink has been spilled on the ongoing oil crash, much of it has been focused on U.S. shale production. Yet, the country that has grown production the most over the last two years, Iraq, has only been mentioned in passing by most observers. Between 2014 and 2016, global oil production grew by 3.3m barrels, 33 percent of that increase, or 1.1m barrels came from a single country: Iraq. If Iraq had maintained its pre-crisis production level of 3.3m barrels, the oil crisis would have been much shallower. Understanding where Iraq’s production is heading is key to understanding where oil prices will go, but like most things, understanding the future requires that you understand the past. In 2009, six years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Iraq undertook a series of licencing rounds for the development of its giant southern oil fields. That […]