Rumaila Update

Basrah – Rumaila’s facelift is continuing despite a few hiccups that pushed production down to below the initial production rate (IPR) of 1.065 million barrels per day. That’s the rate at which Rumaila was producing under SOC last year until BP with CNPC signed a service contract to stop the decline and develop the field further to bring it up to 2.85 million b/d within 6 years. However, SOC officials…

Pioneer CNPC

Wasit Province – About 2,000 Chinese workers are about to descend on Al-Ahdab oil field next month to start work on the construction of the central production facility, engineer Ahmad Abdul Redha, the chief of Al-Ahdab section at North Oil Co (NOC) tells me during a tour of the fortress camp that CNPC’s subsidiary, Al-Waha Petroleum, built just 15 km to the west of Kut. With five rigs on the…

Reversing A Trend

Basrah – On the face of it and just listening to Iraqi oil officials describing their new ventures in Rumaila, it would appear as if BP is revolutionizing the way oil is produced in Iraq’s biggest and oldest fields. In reality, much of the work underway aims at reversing the trend of continuous malpractice imposed by years of war and sanctions. This covers all aspects of the production process from…

Making Headway in Rumaila

Basrah – The Rumaila oil fields, North and South, are getting their biggest face lift in a long time and at a rate which will see the fields doubling their output within three years to some 2 million barrels per day. At a joint management committee (JMC) meeting last week, the second so far since the Rumaila service contract won by BP and CNPC in June 2009 became effective Dec….