Lukoil Pares Iraq Oil-Output Target; Others Talk on Similar Cuts

OAO Lukoil agreed to scale back its production target for crude from Iraq’s West Qurna-2 field as the government sought to persuade Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Eni SpA to make similar cuts at other deposits.

Lukoil, Russia’s second-largest crude producer, accepted an output goal of 1.2 million barrels a day at the field it operates in southern Iraq, down from the 1.8 million barrels a day it initially sought to produce, Abdul Mahdy Al-Ameedi, director general of the Oil Ministry’s licensing department, said today in a telephone interview in Baghdad.