Comments from Iraq's oil minister March 1, 2015
The Iraqi oil minister Adel Abdel Mehdi says oil prices are gradually rebounding and he oil recovering to $64 to $65 per barrel.
"I don't think they will return to their previous levels. I can see that oil will be sold at $64 to $65 a barrel," he told a news conference in Baghdad.
Underneath the talk/hope, the real story is that the supply/demand equation continues to tilt toward oversupply. Iraq exports rose to an average of 2.597 million bpd from 2.535 million bpd the previous month.
The big tilt toward another supply glut could be Libya. From virtually nil a few months ago, it's now at more than 400K bpd, according to officials cited by Reuters. There is tremendous spare capacity because prior to the 2011 civil war, the country was producing 1.6 mbpd.
