West Qurna, Rumaila & Water Injection

I refer to your informative interview with Dhiya Jaafar, D.G. of Southern Oil Company (SOC), and would Like to share with you the following brief comments. – West Qurna-1 Mishrif reservoir seems to be over produced and hence there is a need to revise the production policy in this field with a view to minimizing pressure decline by reducing production from now until water availability is secured. I do not know…

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…

Dhiya Jaafar

South Oil Co (SOC) Director General Dhiya Jaafar gives an update on the state of Iraqi oil production, infrastructure expansion and ongoing projects and problems in an interview with Ruba Husari Nov. 1st, 2010, in his office in Basrah. Q: How do you explain the continued decline in production at Rumaila oil field where BP was the first to sign a development contract, precisely to arrest the decline and increase…

What’s Behind Iraq’s Reserves Revision

While one cannot exclude strategic motive to announce the reserves increase at this time, there is certainly room for doing so. Let us hope that the MoO is embarking on a policy of enlightening the industry, the public and the concerned Iraqi technocrats. The MoO statement while informative to the public, it is short of the necessary elaboration to be more meaningful to the oil technocrats. However, in my opinion Iraq oil reserves, as the…