The Iraqi government has teamed up with Booz & Company and the World Bank in preparing a so-called an integrated energy strategy outlining three scenarios for the country's oil production from 2012 to 2030.
The Iraqi government has teamed up with Booz & Company and the World
Bank in preparing a so-called an integrated energy strategy outlining three
scenarios for the country's oil production from 2012 to 2030.
The first envisages
Iraq
producing up to 13.5 million barrels a day starting from 2017.
"From 2012 to 2017, we are going to produce crude oil as high as
possible," said Ali Al Mashat, an energy advisor at the Iraqi Council of
Ministers and a coordinator of the strategy.
Iraq
is
currently producing some 2.9 million barrels a day and expected to reach 3
million barrels a day this month, officials said.
"The strategy proposes that
Iraq
's oil
output target in 2017 would hit some 13.5 million barrels a day from
2017," Al Mashat said.
Iraqi officials, including Thamer Ghadhban, the top energy advisor to the prime
minister, and Adnan al-Janabi, head of the oil and energy committee in
parliament, presented a preliminary outline of the strategy at a seminar in
Istanbul
organized by the London-based CWC Group.
The strategy paper, proposed by the prime minister's advisory commission, is
expected to be made public in January.
The strategy assumptions are based on the 11 oil field development contracts
that
Iraq
has
signed with international oil companies since 2009 to expand output. The deals
would enable
Iraq
to
pump 12 million barrels a day in the next six years. Such a production
expansion would raise Iraqi output to levels produced by the world's largest
oil producer,
Saudi Arabia
.
Many oil industry experts and companies consider that forecast as unrealistic,
given the challenges
Iraq
faces, including a lack of a decent water injection system, inadequate
infrastructure and the unstable security situation.
"Wishful thinking is something and reality is something else," said a
western executive whose company is involved in the development of Iraqi oil
fields.
"They don't have the infrastructure and the skills to reach that level of
production," said another company executive. "They don't have the
roads and ports to deliver equipment and the power to operate production
facilities."
The second scenario, forecasting a capacity of 9.5 million barrels a day
starting from 2020, is seen by oil experts as more realistic.
The third scenario envisages
Iraq
's
output reaching 6 million barrels a day in 2017.
However, Al Mashat said these scenarios are subjected to further discussions
and could be changed.
The strategy also draws up plans for
Iraq
's gas
development and production.
Iraq
,
which holds some 112.6 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves, the fifth largest
gas reserves in the region, produces only 1 billion cubic feet a day, some 700
million out of which is being flared.
Iraq
signed last year with Booz & Company an $8 million contract which is
co-financed by the Iraqi government and the World Bank, Ghadhban said.
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