Iraq to make suggestions to facilitate OPEC supply cut agreement

Oil producing countries working to push prices

By Reuters - Nov 21,2016 - Last updated at Nov 21,2016

An Iraqi refugee girl waits with her parents to buy food from a local vendor behind the fence of the Khazir Refugee Camp near the Kurdish checkpoint of Aski Kalak, 40 km west of Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, on Monday (AFP photo)

BAGHDAD — Iraq's oil minister Jabar Ali Al Luaibi will make suggestions at a meeting of Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil ministers at the end of the month to implement an agreement to restrain crude supply in order to push up prices, according to a statement from his ministry on Monday.

The statement didn't indicate what these suggestions are but hinted that Iraq would not be contributing to any output cut.

Iraq's "legitimate demands should not constitute an obstacle to a new agreement to freeze output", Luaibi said in the statement. Iraq "will offer new thoughts and suggestions to bring the members closer to an agreement".

Luaibi last month said Iraq should be exempted from OPEC crude output restrictions as it needs the income to fight the war on the Daesh terror group, an ultra-hardline group.

Iran, Libya and Nigeria, whose output has been hit by sanctions or conflict, have also asked to be exempted.

The OPEC agreed in Algiers on September 28 to reduce production, its first output cut since 2008, but left aside the delicate task of how much each of the 14 members will produce.

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