The Iraqi Minister of Oil, Hayan Abdul-Ghani, said that the Oil Ministry is taking steps to reach a production capacity of five million barrels per day despite the serious restrictions on oil markets and the OPEC countries’ quota limitations to maintain price stability.
It has now been just over a year since the Federal Government of Iraq imposed an embargo on oil exports from the country’s semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan.
Destroying all financial independence for the region, which is reliant on ongoing independent oil supplies, is one of the tools Baghdad has to erode Erbil’s autonomy.
The latest tactic of blaming international oil companies for the embargo still being in place is just another element.
Iraq-Turkey pipeline shut since March 2023
Baghdad: around 225,000 bpd being produced without its oversight
APIKUR says terms of current contracts must be maintained
US encourages restart, State Dept. spokesperson says
Shafaq News/ Iraq’s oil ministry on Tuesday said investments in gas resources is a top priority for the government as it prepares for a new bidding round.
British supermajor Shell last week exited Iraq’s potentially game-changing US$11-billion Nebras Petrochemical Project.
Shell signed the NPP deal, having agreed to the original memorandum of understanding back in 2012.
The key problem stopping Iraq from fulfilling its potential in oil, gas, and petrochemicals, remains the widespread corruption in its oil and gas sector, among others,
Iraq’s Oil Minister, Hayan Abdel Ghani, voiced his disappointment with ExxonMobil’s intention to withdraw from the West Qurna 1 oilfield in Iraq at the beginning of 2024. Instead, the Ministry of Oil claims that ExxonMobil plans to focus on potential investment opportunities in African nations.
PetroChina’s contract to develop the Nahr bin Umar gas field follows the takeover by PetroChina of ExxonMobil’s operator role in the giant West Qurna 1 field.
For China, Iraq’s gas sector is not just potentially massive but is also highly connected to its equally potentially huge oil sector.
Around 70 percent of Iraq’s gas reserves are ‘associated’ with oil fields, and the majority of these fields are located in the southeast of Iraq.
Reuters: OPEC’s crude oil production dropped in November for the first monthly decline since July.
OPEC produced 27.81 million barrels per day of crude last month, a drop of 90,000 bpd compared to October.
In November, Iran, which is exempted from the OPEC+ cuts, further increased its output to a five-year high, according to the Reuters survey.
Iraqi oil minister Hayan Abdel-Ghani expects to reach an agreement with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and foreign oil companies to resume oil production from the Kurdish region’s oil fields within three days, he said on Sunday.
Shafaq News / The U.S. Energy Information Administration confirmed today, Tuesday, that Iraq’s oil exports to the United States reached approximately 84 million barrels during the first eight months of 2023.