Historically, Iraqi production peaked in December 1979 at 3.7 million bbl/d, and then in July 1990, just prior to its invasion of Kuwait, at 3.5 million bbl/d. From 1991, when production crashed due to war, Iraqi oil output increased slowly, to 600,000 bbl/d in 1996. With Iraq's acceptance in late 1996 of U.N. Resolution 986, which allowed limited Iraqi oil exports in exchange for food and other supplies ("oil-for-food"), the country's oil output began increasing more rapidly, to 1.2 million bbl/d in 1997, 2.2 million bbl/d in 1998, and around 2.5 million bbl/d during 1999-2001. Iraqi monthly oil output increased in the last few months of 2002 and into early 2003, peaking at around 2.58 million bbl/d in January 2003, just before the war.

As of December 2005, Iraqi production (net of reinjection) was averaging around 1.9 million bbl/d, with "gross" production (including reinjection, water cut, and "unaccounted for" oil due in part to problems with metering) of about 2.1 million bbl/d. Most analysts believe that there will be no major additions to Iraqi production capacity for at least 2-3 years, with Shell’s Vice President recently stating that any auction of Iraq’s oilfields was unlikely before 2007.

According to Tariq Shafiq, a founding Vice President of the Iraq National Oil Company (INOC), Iraq's oil development and production costs are among the lowest in the world, ranging from as low as $750 million for each additional million bbl/d day in Kirkuk, to $1.6 billion per million bbl/d near Rumaila, and as high as $3 billion per million bbl/d for smaller fields in the northwestern part of the country.

 

In contrast, Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) estimates an average cost for Iraqi oil development of $3.5 billion per million bbl/d for the country as a whole, which is higher than Tariq Shafiq's estimates, but still relatively low by world standards. Either way, Iraq is considered a highly attractive oil prospect, with only 17 of 80 discovered fields having been developed, and few deep wells compared to its neighbors. Overall, only about 2,300 wells reportedly have been drilled in Iraq (of which about 1,600 are actually producing oil).

Throughout most of the 1990s, Iraq did not generally have access to the latest, state-of-the-art oil industry technology (3D seismic, directional or deep drilling, gas injection, etc.), sufficient spare parts, and investment. Instead, Iraq reportedly utilized sub-standard engineering techniques (i.e., overpumping), obsolete technology, and systems in various states of decay in order to sustain production.

 

In the long run, reversal of all these practices and utilization of the most modern techniques, combined with development of both discovered fields as well as new ones, could result in Iraq's oil output increasing by several million barrels per day.