Baghdad ? OPEC members are expected to cut oil production when they convene in March to try to push up prices to at least $70 a barrel, Iraq’s oil minister said Saturday.

Hussain al-Shahristani also identified political tensions, bureaucracy and lack of funds as impediments to developing Iraq’s hydrocarbon resources.

OPEC cuts have so far failed to stop the dramatic fall in oil prices since July. The drop has hit Iraq particularly hard. The country depends on oil revenues for nearly 95 percent of its budget. As a result, the government was forced to slash its 2009 draft budget from $80 billion to $64 billion.

“The year 2009 will be a tough year around the world and that will be reflected on the oil demand and then prices will drop,” al-Shahristani told a symposium in Baghdad on developing Iraq’s oil and gas industry.

In December, OPEC announced a 2.2 million barrel production cut aimed at boosting prices that have plummeted from mid-July highs of $147 per barrel. The cuts came on top of another 2 million barrel production cut instituted in the last quarter of 2008.

But oil prices have continued to deteriorate. Benchmark light, sweet crude for March delivery dropped a dollar on Friday to settle at $40.17 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.