Iraqi National Oil Company

INOC was founded in 1966. In order to protect Iraqi national interests, the company was forbidden from entering into partnerships or granting concessions to foreign oil companies. The only foreign aid came in the form of the Iraq-Soviet Protocol, which was a contract with the Soviet Union that required the country to give technical and financial aid to INOC.

By 1980, the company had a production capacity of 3 million barrels per day. However, the outbreak of war with Iran severely damaged production capacity. Subsequent war prevented the return to 1980 levels. The company was scrapped by Saddam Hussein in 1987 and broken into several regional companies.

Starting in 2009, there was talk of rebuilding the INOC. Iraq is estimated to have 115 million barrels of oil in its reserves and it is expected that, barring any further setbacks, the INOC can reach production of 3.5 million barrels per day by 2014.

There has been a bitter dispute in the Iraqi parliament since the fall of the Hussein government as to the portions of profits that will go to each of the three major groups. The Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish factions have been unable to reach an agreement. The Kurdish faction has actually begun producing its oil fields, against the edict of the Ministry of Oil, and currently has a production capacity of 180,000 barrels of oil per day.