Building on its oil production growth this year, Iraq is to further expand its oil capacity in 2019 as Baghdad continues to face economic challenges, including substantial reconstruction costs. Iraq’s new oil minister has made it abundantly clear that little should stand in Baghdad’s path to boosting its crude production capacity in 2019 to 5 million barrels per day (bpd), even though that agenda might run counter to plans by other oil producers for collaborative output cuts in 2019. © 2015-2018 The Arab Weekly. All rights reserved. read more.