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By Ahmed Mousa Jiyad.

Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.

The Ministry of Oil should withdraw its plan to offer 12 new oilfields.

In a rather surprise move, the Ministry of Oil (MoO) announced its “intention” to offer 12 medium and small oilfields to IOCs for development and production.

The most alarming and absurd components of the announcement are the contractual modality and the process of awarding and contracting.

Considering the danger and implications of the announcement I call upon the Ministry of Oil to withdraw this announcement immediately and focus instead on properly manage and monitor what has been contracted already. Otherwise, the Iraqi upstream petroleum could suffer from devastating consequences at a time when the country is liberating its provinces, especially Mousil from Da’esh.

The offered fields are Sindebad, Um-Qaser, Rachi and Abu-Khema (in Basra Governorate); Kumait, Noor, Umara, Dema and Dujaila (in Missan Province); and Merjan, Kifl and West Kifl-all known as Mid-Euphrates (in Middle Iraq).  MoO announcement provides further information which will be addressed in this commentary.

At the outset, this is not a new move at all. After completing the fourth bid rounds, the MoO has at least formally announced three times its intention for new offering. The first was during the former Minister Abdul Kareem Luaibi, who in March 2013 announced a fifth bid round comprising “10 oilfields”, then in October he postponed that round to “next year”.

The second was related to the well-known Nassiriya Integrated Project-NIP, which combines the development of Nassiriya oilfields with a 300kbd modern refinery. Though NIP attracted good number of reputable IOCs, the project was put on shelves and related bid round was postponed indefinitely in June 2014. Recently, MoO offered Nassiriya Refinery for private investors, thus NIP is dead!

The third is related to linking Ratawi and Bin-Umar oilfields (in Basra) to funding the water-injection Common Seawater Supply Project (CSSP) reportedly negotiated with ExxonMobil and PetroChina (CNPC). Since January this year no further information is publically available on earmarking the two oilfields to CSSP.

The current Minister of Oil made many pledges when he took office among them two of particular relevance to this topic: first, he emphasized the “national efforts” in upstream petroleum development and second, decision will be based on “solid and thorough studies and assessment”. The recent announcement by the Ministry is diametrically opposing to what the Minster has recently pledged.

By offering these 12 oilfields to IOCs “whether as independent (individual) company or as consortium of companies” in addition to what was contracted under the previous four bid rounds nothing meaningful is left for the “national efforts” role in this sub-sector. Moreover, where are these “solid and thorough studies and assessment” which the recent announcement was premised upon?   None!

Please click here to download Ahmed Mousa Jiyad’s full report.

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.

By John Lee.

The former head of the Energy Studies Department at the Opec Secretariat in Vienna has said that delays in capturing associated gas from Iraq's oilfields is costing the country billions of dollars.

Saadallah Al Fathi told GulfNews.com that the Basra Gas Company (BGC) is very slow in rehabilitating and maintaining the plants at North Rumaila and Khor Zubair.

The Basra Gas Company (BGC) is a $17.2-billion joint venture set up in November 2011 to gather and process gas from the three southern oilfields of Rumaila, West Qurna 1, and Zubair; it is owned by the Iraqi South Gas Company (SGC) (51%), Shell (44%) and Mitsubishi (5%).

Al-Fathi added:

"Only in April 2014 did the company award the technical studies of a new gas plant in Ratawi of 500 mcfd capacity, which would cost $2 billion. But it is too little compared with gas production now assuming current facilities are completely rehabilitated.

"By the time the plant is ready, it will probably be five years from now and gas flaring would continue. Iraq probably needs four of such plants if flaring is to be avoided and electricity demand is satisfied.

"This is what prompted the IEA in June 2012 to say that the implied value of the gas flared to 2020 would be $70 to $100 billion and that ‘This lost value provides a compelling reason for Iraq to move as quickly as it can to make early additions to gas processing capacity’."

(Source: GulfNews.com)

Technip, in partnership with China HuanQiu Contracting & Engineering Corporation (HQC), has been awarded a front-end engineering design (FEED) contract for the Ar Ratawi Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) train1 project at North Rumaila in Basra.

The deal was awarded by the Basra Gas Company (BGC), a joint venture between the Iraq's South Gas Company (51%), Shell (44%) and Mitsubishi (5%).

The project is the first of the new greenfield associated gas processing facilities that will significantly minimize gas flaring in Iraq and make more energy resources available for power and domestic use– an NGL train with nominal feed gas capacity of 530 million standard cubic feet per day. The standalone facilities will produce liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), NGL and condensate for domestic markets.

The scope of work covers the basic engineering design package of the NGL process units, utilities and the submission of an engineering procurement and construction (EPC) package.

Technip’s operating center in Abu Dhabi will execute the project, scheduled to be completed by the end of 2014.

Vaseem Khan, President of Technip in the Middle East, declared:

“This award reflects Technip’s strengthened position in the Middle-East market, following several previous awards. We are proud to bring our specific technological edge and licensed innovative solutions to the downstream industry, while leveraging our 30 years presence in the region.”

(Source: Technip)

Iraq's South Oil Company, working with the IOCs, has set quarterly
production targets for the country's southern oilfields for 2011,
according to documents obtained by Reuters.

Production is targeted reach an average of nearly 2.3m bpd by Q4 2011.

 Oilfields            Q1          Q2          Q3          Q4

 Rumaila           1,175,000   1,201,000   1,226,000   1,250,000

 West Qurna 1        260,000     270,000     285,000     300,000

 Majnoon              70,000      80,000      90,000     100,000

 Zubair              280,000     310,000     340,000     360,000

 Gharaf                  -           -           -        35,000

 Nahr Bin Umar        45,000      50,000      60,000      70,000

 Ratawi               10,000      14,000      18,000      25,000

 Luhais               60,000      70,000      80,000      85,000

 Tuba                 10,000      15,000      20,000      30,000

 Nassiriya            15,000      20,000      30,000      30,000

TOTAL              1,925,000   2,030,000   2,149,000   2,285,000

(Source: Reuters)

quarterly 2011 production targets for
Iraq's southern oilfields

Reuters, quoting a top Russian official, says Russia's largest oil producer Rosneft will invest $630 million in a joint project with UAE firm Crescent Petroleum to drill for gas in the Middle East.

In May, Rosneft's Chairman Igor Sechin, who is also Russia's Deputy Prime Minister, said Russia was keen for projects to drill for gas in Iraq.

Last year, Crescent Petroleum formed a consortium with Dana Gas of the UEA, Austria's OMV, and Hungary's MOL, that aims to pump enough gas from Iraq's Kurdistan region to kick-start the Nabucco pipeline to Europe via Turkey. Nabucco is seen by many as the main competitor of the Gazprom-led South Stream pipeline and is aimed at lessening European dependence on Russia, which supplies a quarter of the EU's gas needs.

Meanwhile, according to both Itar-Tass and RIA Novosti, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin met with Crescent's Chairman, Hamid Jafar, on Saturday to discuss energy cooperation in the Middle East.

"During the talks, future cooperation in the energy sector of Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries was discussed," the Russian government press service said.

RIA Novosti also mentions that former (and possibly future) Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi is a board member of Crescent Petroleum, and that he was present at the meeting with Putin, but he is not listed as a director on Crescent's website.

Crescent in Iraq

Crescent Petroleum has been present in Iraq for almost 20 years, with offices in Baghdad, Erbil and Basra, all staffed 100% by qualified and experienced Iraqis. The Company has been actively engaged with the Ministry of Oil since the late eighties, carried out studies and training for the Iraqi Ministry of Oil and completed a full field development plan for the Ratawi oil field in Basra province, and would be able to achieve 250,000 barrels of new oil per day in just 18 months. The agreement was fully negotiated in the mid-nineties but not signed due to respect for international sanctions.

Crescent Petroleum is in partnership with its affiliate Dana Gas, and currently implementing a major integrated natural gas project in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, under a service agreement signed with the regional authorities, to produce, process and deliver 300 million cubic feet per day of gas supplies urgently needed for power generation. The combined project investment of $650m is the largest private-sector investment currently being undertaken in Iraq, and involves the construction of about 180km of pipelines and two LPG plants. The project will sustain two power plants to generate 1250 MW providing cost effective electricity for 4 million Iraqis, freeing the extra 300 MW of electricity to other provinces, saving Iraq $2.5bn a year in imported fuels, and creating over 2000 new jobs. The first phase of the project was accomplished within record time, highlighted by the servicing and completion of the wells, laying the pipeline across challenging mountainous and hazardous terrain, and the installation of brand new processing facilities. 50,000 tonnes of equipment were imported. The first gas production commenced on 05 October 2008, delivering the much needed fuel to the region’s electrical power generation facilities.

In addition, Crescent Petroleum and Dana Gas are developing a joint gas strategy with the Kurdistan Regional Government, including gas export plans to Europe, and are jointly leading the "Kurdistan Gas City" project to use gas supplies to fuel local industry and job creation.

Crescent has already engaged with the Basra Development Commission, as well as the federal Ministries of Industry and Investment Commission, with a view to meeting local infrastructure needs including utilising currently flared gas and launching a Basra Gas City project on an even larger scale than the one in Kurdistan.

(Sources: Reuters, Itar-Tass, RIA Novosti, Crescent Petroleum)