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Economy News Baghdad:
The company is fully committed to its joint gas project in Iraq after the giant energy company exits its oil assets in the OPEC member country and plans to increase its gas production there to 1.4 billion cubic feet per day (2020), a Shell executive said .
Iraqi gas development plans have long been focused on Basrah, a $ 17 billion 25-year-old project in which Iraq owns 51 percent, Shell 44 percent and Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp. 5 percent. The project aims to collect gas from the fields in the south of the country, including the West Qurna-1 field operated by ExxonMobil, the Zubair field run by Eni of Italy and the Rumaila field developed by BP .
Gas production from the joint venture, the main fuel producer in southern Iraq, currently stands at 938 million cubic feet per day (bpd), with plans for further expansion, said Fritz Kallab, director general of Basrah gas .
“Since 2013 (when it started operating), we have increased the processing capacity more than three times,” Kallab said in a telephone interview from Basra .
“We will move to something called BNGL, or the expansion of Basra NGL (natural gas liquids), which will actually push us from 1 billion cubic feet per day to 1.4 billion cubic feet per day through two units of 200 million feet Standard cubic meter daily . ”
He said he expected the two units to be operational by the end of 2020. He added that the number of units could be more than five with the final investment decision taken towards the end of the year .
“That is an increase of about 40 percent, and it will be huge .”
Iraq’s production of associated gas is expected to grow as the country increases its oil production capacity. Iraq plans to increase the country’s production capacity of crude oil to 6.5 million bpd by 2022