Former Iraqi oil minister Thamir Ghadhban has said his country could more than triple oil output by 2017, Reuters has reported. “I expect we will reach a capacity of 8 million barrels a day (b/d) within the next six-seven years,” Ghadhban told a conference. Iraq signed deals with international oil companies following auctions last year that could in theory take capacity to 12 million b/d by 2017, a figure that most analysts view as unrealistic.