The Missan Oil Company expects to increase output by 20 percent to 120,000 barrels a day by the end of this year

The company’s Director General Ali Muarej told Boomberg that ten wells will be made operational at the Halfaya field south of Baghdad in the next two months to raise production.

Total, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), and Petronas are developing Halfaya.

CNPC has a 50 percent share in the project, with Total and Petronas each owning 25 percent.

(Source: Bloomberg)

The Iraqi Oil Ministry wants to build two new refineries in the provinces of Karbala [Kerbala] and Missan [Maysan], in order to reduce the country’s dependency on foreign oil imports, according to AKnews.

The one in Karbala will produce up to 140.000 barrels of fuel per day, the one in Missan up to 150,000.

The announcement comes one day after the Oil Ministry reported that Iraq is still not able to produce enough oil and gas to meet its own demands. While Iraq produces 8 million liters of liquid gas per day, it consumes approximately 12 million liters.

The situation is even worse as far as oil is concerned: 12 million liters of refined oil are produced in Iraq every day, however another 12 million liters have to be imported from international markets.

In a move that some regards as a panic reaction, the Oil Ministry this weekend halted its programme to provide free fuel to owners of generators. The programme started in June in order to increase private energy production and cost $400 million [468 billion Iraqi dinars].

(Source: AKnews)

(Picture: Baiji refinery)

The Chairman of Southern Iraq’s Missan Energy Committee has said on Thursday that the Province’s Council had decided to sack the Director-General of Missan Oil Company from his post.

According to the report from Aswat al-Iraq, he has been accused of poor administration and failing to achieve higher oil production results during his assignment.

“Missan Province’s Council has decided in an emergency session today (Thursday) to sack the Director-General of Missan Oil Company, Engineer Ali Muarij, from his post, due to his bad administration and failure to achieve high production averages in the Province during his assignment,” Amer Nasrallah told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

He said that Muarij “had violated Article 112 of the Iraqi Constitution, including necessity for coordination with the Councils of Provinces and directors of productive establishments, in order to carry out the administration of those establishments and the implementation of investments by them.”

He added that “17 out of Missan Council’s members have voted for the decision of ending the services of the said official, whilst 8 members have abstained.”

(Source: Aswat al-Iraq)

The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and its partners in the southern Halfaya oilfield have awarded a $174 million contract to the China Petroleum and Engineering Corp. (CPECC) to build three crude processors, an Iraqi oil official told Reuters on Sunday.

Ali Maarij, head of Iraq’s state-run Missan Oil Company said the new plants will raise the production capacity of Halfaya field by 100,000 barrels per day.

Halfaya field currently produces around 12,000 bpd and plans to hit 20,000 bpd by the end of this year. Production of around 90,000 bpd is expected to be achieved in the first quarter of 2012, Maarij said.

(Source: Guardian)

The consortium of Chinese, Malaysian and French companies working on the Halfaya oil field, 35 km east of Amara, in Maysan [Missan] province, have completed drilling four oil wells.

Ali Altarfi, the media department of Missan Oil Company, told Aswat al-Iraq that, “the plan is to drill 300 wells in this gigantic oil field within 5 years, according to the agreement signed with the Ministry of Oil.”

The contract stipulates that production should reach 535 thousand barrels per day (bpd), which is five times higher than the local production of the field, in addition to provision of gas products to neighboring power stations.

“The reserves of this oil field are expected to reach 15 billion barrels,” Altarfi added.

The companies that won the bid to develop this field are CNPC, Total, and Petronas.

(Source: Aswat al-Iraq)

Iraq’s Missan Oil Company has said it has formed a committee to compensate the farmers whose agricultural areas fell within the Halfaya Oil Field, east of its Amara city.

“In response to the approval of the Oil Minister and the instructions of Missan Oil Company’s Director-General, a committee was formed to carry out field inspection of the losses caused to the agricultural areas, within the limits of Halfaya Oil Field, now under development by a Chinese company, according to a contract with the Oil Ministry,” Mohammed Jabbar, chairman of the Compensations Committee, told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

Jabbar said that the area of the oilfield exceeded 530 square km, representing the total area for the field developed by the Chinese company, adding that 70 farmers had demanded compensation in the area.

Missan [Maysan] Province is rich in oil, producing about 100,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd), covering six oil fields in Bazergan, Abu-Gharb, Fakka, Halfaya and Amara areas, in addition to the Majnoun Oil Field, that belongs to Missan and Basra Oil Companies, according to Aswat al-Iraq.

Missan also contains five discovered oil fields that are still unproductive, which al-Huweiza, Rafi’e, Rafidain al-Sharqi, dujeila and Kumeit.

(Source: Aswat al-Iraq)

The Iraqi electricity ministry has given the thumbs up to the construction of two new power stations with a capacity of 600 megawatt in Maysan [Missan], according to Aswat al-Iraq.

“One station with a capacity of 100 MW will be set up in al-Batira, (5 km) north of al-Amara, while the other will be near the al-Kahlaa transformer station, (18 km) southeast of Amara,” Amer Nasrallah, the Missan provincial council’s energy committee chairman, said on Sunday.

“The approval came after a visit by the council chairman, Abdul-Hussein al-Saadi, and the council’s energy committee chairman to the electricity ministry,” he added, noting the two stations will be linked to the public grid as part of the ministry’s plan to reduce power shortages.

Maysan, a province with a population of more than one million, needs 400 MW of electricity while the current capacity is below 150 MW from neighboring provinces.

(Source: Aswat al-Iraq)

The volume of waters from the Tigris River reaching Iraq has been receding to the extent that several water purification plants in the Province of Missan [Maysan] are running without water.

Mohannad Kadhem, the head of water purification and distribution in the southern province, said the problem started with tributaries belonging to the river feeding smaller towns.

“The water plant for the district of Adel … has stopped working in addition to four more plants in the district of Kahla,” said Kadhem.

“If water levels kept declining, we may see soon the stoppage of all water purification plants and related installations in the province,” Kadhem warned.

The volume of waters reaching Iraq from the twin rivers of Tigris and Euphrates has been falling drastically in the past few years.

But water shortages have never reached the stage where water purification plants had to be shut down.

Both rivers, on whose waters Iraq relies for drinking, industrial purposes and agriculture, originate in Turkey.

But Kadhem blamed the Ministry of Water Resources, saying it had reduced the water share of Missan Province from the Tigris River to the extent that there is not enough water to feed its tributaries.

(Source: AKnews)