Central to Iraq’s medium-term target to raise its crude oil production capacity to over 6 million barrels per day (bpd), up from around 4.1 million bpd this year, is the supergiant Rumaila field. One of the very largest oil fields in the world, it began production in the 1950s and, together with the Kirkuk field, has produced around 80% of the country’s cumulative oil production since then. Over the years, it remained a microcosm of the positives and negatives that characterise Iraq’s oil industry: blessed with an early abundance…