Introduction

Note: The views contained in this paper were expressed to the participants in the 26th International Oil & Money Conference held in London on 20-21 September 2005. It is common knowledge that Iraq has the second-largest proven oil reserves in the world, with no less then 112bn barrels, and probable reserves of around 250bn barrels. But why is that Iraqi oil does not account for more than a fraction of global oil supply? In fact Iraq has made no more than 2.5mn b/d of its oil available to the world market for almost 25 years, with the exception of a few spells when ...