London

SAUDI Arabia faces the prospect of much deeper - and financially painful - oil production cuts after Iraq joined the queue of group members seeking immunity from the deal hatched in Algiers.

In addition to Iraq, the second-biggest exporter in the group, Iran has already sought to exclude itself. Output is also recovering from fields in Nigeria and Libya, two more countries that were exempted from the Algiers deal because violence has wrought havoc in their oil industries. Taken together, more than a third of Opec's (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) production now stands outside the plan.