Page 9 - MEOG Week 03 2022

MEOG PROJECTS & COMPANIES MEOG

Iraq on the hunt for new reserves

IRAQ IRAQ is set to kick off a new exploration cam- year to proceed with the campaign.
paign covering offshore and undeveloped With all the required approvals having been
onshore areas as it seeks to add to its existing provided for the offshore survey to proceed,
hydrocarbon reserves. Abdul Jabbar pressed the parties to begin their
The country is home to around 144bn bar- efforts in earnest.
rels of recoverable oil reserves based on a con- OEC director-general Basem Muhammad
servative recovery factor of 17-29%, while gas Khudair said that the onshore-offshore explora-
resources are more roughly estimated at 130 tion effort would comprise 2D seismic surveys
trillion cubic feet (3.7 trillion cubic metres). followed by one exploratory well in each area.
These figures are currently being reassessed by CNOOC representative Vincent Xie said
the Ministry of Oil (MoO) and are understood that a joint working team would be formed by
to anticipate significant upside. the companies to “achieve the study’s objectives
Oil Minister Ihsan Abdul Jabbar, speaking in and reach fruitful results”.
his capacity as President of the Iraqi National Oil The exploration effort comes as Iraq is work-
Co. (INOC), this week urged the expedition of ing to expand oil production capacity from the
delayed seismic surveys of the country’s offshore current 5mn bpd to 8mn bpd by 2027 and a
by China’s state-owned China National Offshore nationwide push already in motion to develop
Oil Corp. (CNOOC) under a 2019 deal with gas resources, both in terms of harnessing asso-
INOC subsidiary Oil Exploration Co. (OEC). ciated gas that continues to be routinely flared,
This saw CNOOC agree to explore a and exploration and production of free gas for
530-square km area offshore the Al-Fao pen- use predominantly in electricity generation.
insula, with OEC focusing on a connected The MoO is also planning to offer areas in the
120-square km onshore area south-east of the Western Desert for gas E&P and four areas in the
6.4bn barrel Zubair oilfield. area south-east of Nasiriyah, from which it antic-
Work on the project was delayed by the coro- ipates that oil production could reach 600,000-
navirus (COVID-19) pandemic and meetings 850,000 bpd with associated gas in excess of
were held between Chinese and Iraqi parties last 12mn cubic metres per day.™

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