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Bloomberg
Iraq has given foreign energy companies a month to signal their interest in building a new export pipeline from the Kirkuk oilfields in the north of the country. The new pipeline will replace an old and severely damaged section of the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline. It will start from oilfields near Kirkuk and extend to the Fish-Khabur border
area with Turkey.
Iraq’s oil ministry set January 24 as the deadline for companies to submit letters of interest in building the new pipeline, the ministry said in a statement. The 350-km pipeline which will have the capacity to transport more than one million barrels per day and will be run under an investment model known as “build-operate-transfer,†oil ministry spokesman Asim Jihad said .
Under the project terms, the interested companies or consortia should also build a gas pipeline, pumping stations and facilities for crude storage. Jihad said interested companies must pay the project costs and can then recover them after operating the project for an agreed period of time.
Exports from oilfields in Kirkuk have been on hold since Iraqi government forces took control of them from the Kurds last month in retaliation for a Kurdish referendum on independence which was widely opposed by Turkey, Iran and Western powers. Kurdistan has built another pipeline for Kirkuk exports to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan after the old Kirkuk pipeline belonging to the federal government had been damaged by IS militants.
Iraq plans to increase production from its Nasiriya oilfield to 200,000 barrels per day from 90,000 bpd in the next few years without seeking assistance from international firms, the oil ministry said. The ministry did not give a precise timeline for achieving the production rise from the field, which lies in Dhi Qar province in southern Iraq.
“The ministry has decided to move forward in developing the Nasiriya oilfield through national effort and not to stop or wait for a contract with an international investor,†Oil Minister Jabar al-Luaibi said in a statement.