Once again, good news in Iraq that the mainstream media must be cringing at the thought of reporting on. Iraq has increased oil output in December once again and for 2007, there was a 30% increase.

Iraq’s average oil output rose again in December, marking a roughly 30 percent increase since the start of 2007, the country’s oil ministry said Saturday.

The average output last month reached 2.475 million barrels per day, according to figures released by the State Oil Marketing Company. In January 2007, output was 1.9 million barrels.

Now, I don’t know about you, but, I call that progress. The oil output is also very close to pre-war levels as well.

Since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that removed Saddam Hussein from power, Iraqi production has mostly hovered between 1.7 million and 2 million barrels per day, according to the International Energy Agency. Its prewar production was 2.58 million barrels per day.

Iraq, the holder of the world’s third-largest crude oil reserves with an estimated 115 billion barrels, aims to boost production to 3 million barrels per day by the end of 2008.

The December figures brought the total average of the Iraqi output for 2007 to 2.181 million barrels per day, a rise of 28,000 barrels per day over 2006.

Here’s hoping that 2008 will bring the same levels of progress that we have seen in Iraq over the past year.