The Iraqi cabinet may reactivate an agreement with Halliburton Co. to drill in a western gas field in the Akkas next month, Oil Minister Ihsan Abdul Jabbar told local media, according to Bloomberg.
An agreement with Halliburton will allow the oil ministry to obtain clear data on the Akkas field’s production capacity and could lead to a decision after the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which ends in early May, the minister said.
If the government decides to develop the deposit, which has been dormant since Baghdad recaptured it from Islamic State fighters in late 2017, it will have to select a production company for the project.
Officials have spoken with Chevron Corp. and Saudi Aramco for investment in the region. This “will depend on the data we receive from the exploration and drilling operations,” Abdul Jabbar said in an interview with Al-Forat.
Abdul Jabbar said that 80% of the contracts signed by the Kurdistan Regional Government with oil companies are correct and the rest need to be reviewed. The KRG has no problem with half of the solutions offered by the federal government to resolve the oil issues in Kurdistan.
The Kurdish region exports 430,000 barrels of oil a day, Abdul Jabbar said.
Baghdad has long sought to bring Kurdish production under its control in exchange for funds from the national budget. A February ruling in Iraq’s Supreme Court upheld the central government’s right to hydrocarbons in the semi-autonomous region. The KRG has said its rights to control the region’s oil and gas are enshrined in the Iraqi constitution.
High oil prices
Iraq is likely to sell its oil at an average of $ 106-107 a barrel this month, if prices remain at current levels, the minister added.
The oil ministry provides 30 million liters of gasoline per day for local consumption, a number that Abdul Jabbar described as “large”. Work on a new refinery in Karbala has been delayed by Covid-19, but the facility is expected to be operational in the first quarter of 2023, he added. The country will continue to import gasoline until 2024.
Source: Capital
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