Al-Fao’s New Facelift

Basrah- State Co for Oil Projects (SCOP) is forging ahead with the reconstruction of the Al-Fao crude oil tank farm to bring it back to its old glory of the 1970’s. It was in 1976, just as Iraq nationalized its oil industry, that construction of the 16-tank complex was completed in order to cater for the big increase in oil production and export capacity that Iraq seemed destined for at…

Pumping Up Exports

ConocoPhilips today became the first lifter to load Iraqi crude from the newly opened SPM (single point mooring) in the Mideast Gulf. The new loading facility is now officially open, offering up to 500,000 b/d of export capacity on top of the 1.8 million b/d available at Basrah Oil Terminal and Khor al-Amaya Terminal. That’s more than enough to absorb the idle production capacity currently available in southern Iraq. The…

Maritime Security

The Iraqi navy will have a daunting task of protecting Iraq’s export outlets in the Gulf and securing Iraq’s territorial waters and the tankers routes once the US military wraps up its mission and hands over security responsibilities to the Iraqi side by the end of December 2011. But that won’t be the end. Just as neighboring countries benefit from the presence and the might of the US navy in…