Iraqi oil production has surged in the last years, and the country is on track to becoming one of the world’s largest crude oil producers and exporters. However, many so-called ‘aboveground’ challenges can distort this rosy outlook, ranging from security issues to infrastructural shortcomings and political wrangling between Baghdad and the Kurds.

This paper examines whether, in the age of shale and weak economic growth, oil markets would be destabilized if Iraq would ‘fail’ in the medium term. Attention is also given to the effects of Iraq’s rise as an energy superpower in terms of OPEC cohesion and trade competition from GCC countries towards Asia.