Iraq’s state-owned oil marketing company SOMO in an announcement to its customers said that it plans to make oil production cuts during the first half of 2017. There was no mention anywhere that it will cut output by January 1st as agreed at the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Vienna meeting.

At the OPEC meeting in Vienna, Iraq agreed to cut output by 210,000 bpd from a reference production level of 4.561 million bpd. Iraq had been pressing for higher output limits, saying it needs more money to fight the militant group Islamic State and was the one of the last holdouts that was threatening to sink the OPEC deal.

Less than a month before OPEC is slated to begin the promised cuts, Iraq was increasing its crude oil sales to China, India and the U.S. under new or expanded deals, requiring it to cut deliveries to other customers if it earnestly intends to stick to its pledge to cut oil output by 210,000 bpd.

Iraq’s state-owned oil marketing company SOMO has increased its Basra crude forward export sales to the country’s biggest customer - Chinese Unipec - by 3 percent to 435,000-652,000 bpd for 2017, Reuters reported last Friday, citing people and traders familiar with the matter.

WTI crude halted upside after three consecutive days of gains. It was trading a tight tange at around $53.14/brl at around 10:50 GMT