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New energy strategy aims to streamline oil sector

Iraq's senior energy policy adviser has completed an ambitious national energy strategy, but political obstacles still loom.
Thamer Ghadhban (center), the former oil minister and current senior advisor to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, tours the Doura refinery in Baghdad.

DUBAI - Iraq's long-awaited national energy strategy has been finalized and is ready for Cabinet approval. The plan could put the country on a new path to becoming a net energy exporter with a more sustainable, balanced economy, although its implementation will be complicated by several overlapping political crises.

The energy plans carry global implications, since Iraq has the world's third-largest proven conventional oil reserves and 11th-largest natural gas reserves, and the balance of global oil supply and demand over the next 20 years is reckoned by analysts to hinge on Iraq's ability to sustainably increase its production capacity.

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