By Ahmed Mousa Jiyad. Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.
A New Initiative to Expand Iraqi Crude Oil Exports
Calls to expand Iraq's oil exports have intensified lately. All such calls focus on a westward direction, suggest unilateral routes, and are governed by bilateral arrangements.
My new initiative, in the form of a "project concept", is totally different in directions, in routes, in funding and in the governing multilateral modalities.
The Arabian Sea-Basrah-Mediterranean Pipelines (ASBMP) Initiative, comprising two different separated/independent sub-systems or routes, but could be integrated in a one reverse-pumping regional pipeline network:
- The Northern-Westward Route, Basrah-Mediterranean pipelines network.
- The Southern-Eastward Route, Basrah-Arabian Sea/Gulf of Oman pipelines network.
The details of the ASBMP initiative were presented and debated, in Arabic, during a Zoom meeting organised by the "Mushtarek" platform on Friday 14th August.
Briefly, the Northern-Westward Route, Basrah-Mediterranean pipelines network comprises three sets of pipelines:
- Basrah-Haditha Pipeline (BHP). The main purpose of this pipeline is to transmit crude oil from the south to supply the refineries on its route to Haditha, and to export oil through Turkey and Syria.
- Haditha-Fishkhabor-Ceyhan (HFC). This is the same existing ITP, which takes crude oil from Kirkuk and other fields operated by the federal North Oil Company-NOC, and in recent years, oil from KRG controlled fields. Supporting crude supplies from southern Iraq come through BHP. The ITP bilateral agreement expired late July, but a one-year transitional commercial understanding was concluded on 1st August, while the final comprehensive agreement should be concluded during the year.
- Haditha-Banyas Pipeline (HBP) (or the Syrian Route). This is a new export pipeline to Banyas/Tartos in Syria. At a certain location close to Banyas, a connection for a much smaller pipeline for domestic use only goes to Lebanon/Tripoli and then to Jordan/Zargah (a trunk option from Banyas is possible instead). This connecting pipeline replaces the proposed two separate pipelines: Haditha-Tripoli and Haditha-Aqaba.
The HBP and the connected pipeline are to be financed by the three countries (Syria, Lebanon and Jordan) and the governing modality is through a multilateral agreement by the governments of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. Hence, the Syrian Route is a partnership premised on shared relative cost and benefits and managed by a joint-venture company formed by or approved formally by the four countries.
Click here to view the full report (pdf).
Mr Jiyad is an independent development consultant, scholar and Associate with the former Centre for Global Energy Studies (CGES), London. He was formerly a senior economist with the Iraq National Oil Company and Iraq's Ministry of Oil, Chief Expert for the Council of Ministers, Director at the Ministry of Trade, and International Specialist with UN organizations in Uganda, Sudan and Jordan. He is now based in Norway (Email: mou-jiya(at)online.no, Skype ID: Ahmed Mousa Jiyad). Read more of Mr Jiyad's biography here.
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