what happen to opec cut

In an "unexpected" twist, the WSJ reports that instead of cutting its crude production by 4% as it "promised" it would do in the Vienna November 30 meeting, Iraq instead plans to increase crude-oil exports in January, according to government records, immediately raising questions about its commitment to the OPEC’s landmark production agreement. Iraq’s national oil company, the State Organization for Marketing of Oil, or SOMO, had plans as of December 8, nine days after agreeing to cut production, to instead increase deliveries of its Basra oil grades by about 7% to 3.53 million barrels a day compared with October levels, according to a detailed oil-shipment program viewed by The Wall Street Journal. Those oil shipments represent about 85% of Iraq’s exports.
The list of planned tanker loadings has been circulated among potential buyers so they can gauge its availability.
When asked by the WSJ to explain this curious discrepancy, SOMO chief Falah al-Amri declined to comment about the company’s January export levels. Iraq’s oil minister, Jabbar Ali al-Luaibi, has said he would instruct SOMO to act on the OPEC output-cut agreement.

As a reminder, Iraq agreed to cut its output by 210,000 barrels a day from October levels of 4.561 million barrels a day. The country’s oil officials were among the most reluctant to go along, disputing OPEC’s statistics and threatening to pull out of the agreement until the last minute because it needs the oil revenue to fight its war against Islamic State. Iraq says it has increased its output to 4.8 million barrels a day in 2016, from less than 3 million barrels a day a few years ago, using Western and Chinese oil companies to tap into its deep crude reserves.