Economic expert Nabil Al-Marsoumi says there’s a clear political push behind the Ministry of Oil’s rush to bring American companies into the West Qurna 2 field — and not because it makes economic sense.
In a post on social media, shared by dinaropinions.com, Al-Marsoumi explained that the ministry’s eagerness to hand over West Qurna 2 and other major oil fields to U.S. companies has nothing to do with real economic benefits. Instead, he says the move is driven purely by politics.
According to him, this rush ignores Iraq’s broader national interest. He pointed out that production-sharing contracts give foreign companies a huge cut — more than one-third of the revenue per barrel. That’s a massive share going out of Iraq’s hands.
Al-Marsoumi also reminded people that ExxonMobil was previously working in the West Qurna 1 field under a service contract and still failed to reach the promised peak production of 1.2 million barrels per day.
He added another key point: Iraq can’t just ramp up production even if it wants to. The country is still limited by its OPEC+ production quota, which it is not allowed to exceed.
