Iraq plans $53bn project with ExxonMobil, PetroChina

Published May 8, 2019
BASRA (iraq): In this Jan 12, 2017 photo, labourers walk in the Nihran Bin Omar field. Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi has instructed Oil Ministry to finalise an agreement with global energy giants to lead a megaproject to boost 
oil production.—AP
BASRA (iraq): In this Jan 12, 2017 photo, labourers walk in the Nihran Bin Omar field. Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi has instructed Oil Ministry to finalise an agreement with global energy giants to lead a megaproject to boost oil production.—AP

BAGHDAD: Iraq is planning a $53 billion mega project with global energy giants ExxonMobil and PetroChina to use seawater from the Persian Gulf to boost oil production, Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi announced on Tuesday.

The 30-year project would boost output from Iraq’s southern oil fields, and includes designs to capture natural gas, which is lost to flaring under current practices, Abdel-Mahdi said at a press conference.

Iraq is producing oil at record levels, but officials are targeting even higher output to meet budget projections and finance reconstruction projects after 16 years of war.

Output averaged 4.5 million barrels per day in March, second only to Saudi Arabia in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, according to data from the global oil consortium.

Water injection is key to boosting production from Iraq’s Rumaila and Majnoon oil fields, as decades of extraction have sapped the subterranean pressures that push crude naturally toward the surface.

Water can be pumped into hydrocarbon formations to make up for the falling pressure and force oil to the surface, but the process is highly energy-intensive to clean, deoxygenate, and nearly desalinate the seawater before injection.

Last week, Abdel-Mahdi, in Berlin, announced that Iraq had agreed to a $14bn “roadmap” with German industrial giant Siemens to rebuild the country’s crumbling electricity sector.

Linking the two announcements on Tuesday, the prime minister said ramping up power generation through electricity sector investment would be vital to the success of the oil fields mega project.

The prime minister said his cabinet has instructed Iraq’s Oil Ministry to finalise an agreement with ExxonMobil and PetroChina. He said the “principles” of an arrangement have already been reached.

Published in Dawn, May 8th, 2019

Follow Dawn Business on X, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook for insights on business, finance and tech from Pakistan and across the world.

Opinion

Editorial

No negotiations
10 Jul, 2025

No negotiations

IT seems like the appeal from Kot Lakhpat Jail has fallen on deaf ears. “[…] The time for negotiations has...
Speech policing
Updated 10 Jul, 2025

Speech policing

Sweeping accusations have once more exposed just how broadly and arbitrarily Peca is being applied.
Continued detention
10 Jul, 2025

Continued detention

THE continued detention of BYC head Mahrang Baloch and five other activists indicates that the state is uninterested...
Killing fields
Updated 09 Jul, 2025

Killing fields

Israeli state seeks to ethnically cleanse the occupied territories of their Palestinian inhabitants, and forever obstruct the chances of a viable Palestinian state.
Crypto rush
09 Jul, 2025

Crypto rush

STEP by step, Pakistan is, at least on paper, moving closer to recognising, adopting and regulating cryptocurrencies...
Another plan
09 Jul, 2025

Another plan

FAILING to plan is planning to fail, as the old saying goes. This seems to have occurred in the case of Karachi, a...