Iraq is preparing to attend a meeting of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries for the first time since occupation by US forces, the Iraqi oil ministry in Baghdad said yesterday.
Opec founder member Iraq's attendance at Opec would bring further international credibility to Baghdad's US-backed Governing Council, particularly in the Arab world.
It would also ease concerns in Opec that an eventual sovereign Iraqi government, under US influence, might exit the cartel and its system of output restraints, raising production from the world's second-largest reserves and undermining oil prices in years to come.
New Iraqi Oil Minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum is planning to head a delegation to next week's conference, the ministry said in a statement.
The statement came after Opec President Abdullah al-Attiyah of Qatar told Mr Uloum by telephone on Monday that most of the cartel's other 10 ministers would welcome Iraq at the meeting.
An official at Opec headquarters in Vienna said no formal invitation had been sent yet to Baghdad. If Iraq is to attend the meeting, Opec's Vienna-based Secretary-General Alvaro Silva must issue an invitation under instructions from cartel president Attiyah.
Since the US invasion in March Iraq has been absent from meetings, Opec insisting it would only welcome a representative from a government recognised by the United Nations.
Most Opec members softened that stance after Arab League foreign ministers let the Governing Council take Iraq's vacant seat at talks last week in Cairo.
Seven Opec members also belong to the Arab League but Iran and Venezuela, Opec's second and third biggest producers do not and could oppose attendance by Baghdad until UN recognition.
Some in Opec had suggested Mr Uloum attend Opec next week merely as an observer but an Iraqi official told Reuters that the minister intended to represent Iraq as an active member of the group.
Opec's September 24 meeting is expected to leave production restraints unchanged for the fourth quarter to support prices near its target of $25 a barrel.
It is not expected that Iraq, struggling to reach pre-war production, will be reincorporated into the group's system of output quotas any time soon. Before the 1990-1991 Gulf war Iraq and Iran shared quota parity with production allocations of 3.14 million barrels a day. Iran now has a quota of 3.73 million barrels a day but Iraq is only pumping about 1.3 million barrels a day and may not need an output quota until it approaches pre-war capacity of three million barrels daily.