Will Iraq Finally Start to Use Its Natural Gas Reserves?

Dec 20, 2022 | Simon Watkins
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It has long been a point of extreme contention with the US that Iraq continues to rely on neighbouring – sanctioned – Iran for around 40 percent of its power supplies, constituted in large part by imports of gas. Although every year when, whoever is prime minister of Iraq at that point goes to Washington to ask for money, promises that this reliance on Iran will end soon, it never does. The solution, though, is simple: Iraq stops burning away all the gas that it releases in the process of extracting oil from its wells and uses this ‘associated’ gas for its power generation. If there is enough of it, which there could be, given the country’s huge oil excavations, then anything left over after powering Iraq properly day and night could be exported and generate much-needed revenues for the country. Last week saw some movement towards this eminently sensible strategy with Iraq’s Ministry of Oil approving increasing associated gas production in the Zubair oilfield to 147 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscf). “The new project aims to raise the number of compressors at the Hammar Mishref station to eleven [which will enable the] raising [of] the compressor capacity from 35 million standard cubic feet per day to 147 million standard cubic feet per day,” highlighted the Director General of the South Gas Company, Hamza Abdel-Baqi.