way.
Last week, Iraq proclaimed that its had discovered more oil and its reserves now topped those of Iran. This week, Iran proclaimed that it had discovered more oil and its reserves once again topped those of Iraq.
The scale of reserves can make a difference when OPEC gets around to re-assigning production quotas—not that Iran and most other OPEC members pay much attention to their quotas. Iran has for decades treated its quota more as a floor than a ceiling.
But there is some prestige in the quotas and more power within OPEC seems to migrate to those with the larger quotas.
Iranian Oil Minister Masud Mir-Kazemi announced Monday that Iran’s proven oil reserves have risen 9 percent to 150.31 billion barrels.
The previous Monday. Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein Al-Shahristani called a news conference to announce that Iraq’s proven oil reserves had risen 24 percent to 143.1 billion barrels, lifting it passed Iran’s (then) 137.6 billion.
The two countries are vying to be credited with the fourth largest reserves.
Saudi Arabia is undisputedly in first place. Canada is agreed to be in second place, but only when its vast oil sands are included. And there is much question about the commercial viability of the oil sands. Venezuela raised its proclaimed oil reserves by 70 percent in 2008, putting it in third place, but raising a lot of eyebrows.
Iran and Iraq announced their new reserve claims just days before the next OPEC session, which was due to be held Thursday after the Iran Times went to press. OPEC is not, however, close to reassigning quotas among members. But it will have to do that when Iraq rejoins the quota system, which is anticipated in a year or two.
Amrita Sen, an oil analyst with Barclays in London, look at the Baghdad and Tehran claims and commented: “It looks almost like a bidding war.”