Iraq has started work on the third and final phase of the Halfaya oil field expansion, with the goal to double production capacity next year, a company official at the state-run firm overseeing fields in the province told Reuters on Tuesday.
With more facilities to separate crude oil from associated gas, production capacity at the Halfaya oil field is set to double to 400,000 bpd in 2018, said Adnan Noshi, head of Maysan Oil Co.
The Halfaya oil field, operated by PetroChina, is the biggest field that Maysan Oil is overseeing, and is pumping 200,000 bpd. The total production of Maysan Oil is currently 380,000 bpd, Noshi told Reuters.
Iraq, OPEC’s second-biggest producer behind Saudi Arabia, plans to boost its crude oil production by 600,000 bpd to 5 million bpd by the end of this year, regardless of its participation in OPEC’s production cut deal. Iraq has been the most disinclined of all parties to the agreement since its inception, with a lot of observers expecting it to be the first one to cheat.
In OPEC’s collective agreement to cut output, Iraq pledged to keep its production capped at 4.351 million bpd between January and June, by cutting 210,000 bpd from its October 2016 level.
OPEC’s secondary sources – the sources that the cartel considers as legitimate measure of the single countries’ production – show that Iraq’s production in March was 4.402 million bpd, slightly down from February, but still above the ceiling it had signed up to in the production cut deal. As per OPEC secondary sources, Iraq has not managed to comply yet with the agreement in any of the three previous months.
Iraq’s production in March stood at 4.46 million bpd, according to Falah Al-Amri, director general of Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO), as quoted by Bloomberg.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
ADVERTISEMENT
More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
- Low Oil Prices Won’t Deter Russia From Arctic Drilling
- Did OPEC Shoot Itself In The Foot?
- Low Oil Prices Force Abu Dhabi To Sell U.S. Assets
