Iraq is ESPECIALLY important to airline pilots, I just read.
The TOTAL world's excess oil capacity is 2.5m barrels per day.
The total Iraqi output: 2.5m barrels per day.
If Iraqi oil production falls significantly, there is no excess capacity at all, and oil prices will go up a lot, and could spike significantly if there are any other problems.
As Seth Kleinman, head of energy strategy at Citigroup, told Bloomberg TV this morning, “The world needs Iraqi oil. It needs Iraq not to descend into civil war.”
Iraq's Kurds Try (and Fail) to Sell More Crude Oil - Businessweek