Pumping Up Khurmala

Erbil – It seems that Baghdad and Erbil have reached a tacit agreement on how to divide the contested oil fields between the region and the rest of the country. Or that’s at least what seems to be happening in Khurmala Dome, one of three major domes making up the giant Kirkuk oil field.

Khurmala Dome, which has de-facto become the Khurmala oil field, is the least developed of the three domes though it had numerous wells drilled. The others are the Baba and Avanah domes which have been producing for very long decades. The last time the Iraqi oil ministry and North Oil Co (NOC), which has been operating the field so far, were involved in Khurmala was in 2004…

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Avanah Dome . Avrasia . Baba Dome . crude processing . drilling . early production facility . Erbil . Erbil refinery . Hawrami . iraq oil . Kalak refinery . Kar Group . Khurmala . Kirkuk . KRG . Kurdistan . MNR . NOC . oil ministry . pipelines . production . Sheikh Baz Karim . Somo . wells The View from Baghdad

IDC’s Success Story

Iraq Drilling Co (IDC) is back in force and seems on the way to turn itself into a success story by teaming up with the big ones. After the short setback following the failed joint venture with Mesopotamia Petroleum, it has finally found the magic formula to play the leading role in the gigantic drilling effort that will take place across the Iraqi oil fields over the next few years.

In the first drilling tender launched earlier this year for drilling in Rumaila oil field, IDC bid jointly with Schlumberger, the world’s largest oilfield services provider and together they won a contract to drill 21 new wells and carry out workover jobs on 23 wells. IDC will supply three of its…

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al-Ghadban . bids . drilling . drilling tenders . Gharraf . Halliburton . IDC . Iraq drilling company . Majnoon . Mesopotamia Petroleum . Najmah . OEC . oil ministry . pipelines . pumping stations . Qayarah . rigs . Rumaila . Schlumberger . Scop. . service contracts . Shahristani . tank farm . Weatherford . wells . West Qurna . workover . Zubair The View from Baghdad

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 the use of submersible pumps and the handling of the resulting water cut; to horizontal drilling; to the use of 3-D seismic and modern well-logging to improve oil recovery rates.

To start with, electric submersible pumps were only used in Upper Shale at depth of 3100 meters where reservoir pressure was…

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bid round . BP . CNPC . contracts . drilling . ESP . Halliburton . horizontal drilling . IDC . iraq oil . logging . oil ministry . perforation . reservoirs . Rumaila . rumaila field . rumaila north . Schlumberger . seismic . Shahristani . SOC . South Rumaila . submersible pumps . water injection . water treatment . Weatherford . wells . wet crude The View from Baghdad

Jabbar Al-Luaibi

Former Director General of South Oil Co and oil ministry advisor Jabbar al-Luaibi discusses in an interview with Ruba Husari in Dubai May 16, 2009 the state of the oil fields in southern Iraq and the reasons behind the recent loss in production capacity at Iraq’s major producing oil fields.

Q: You brought the oil sector back from the ashes in 2003 and ramped up production till you achieved an unprecedented peak in 2007. Why the sudden deterioration and the loss of production capacity now?

A: It’s true, the oil production profile was almost zero after the end of the war in 2003. We restarted production immediately at 50,000 b/d once the war ended in April and we were already producing 500,000…

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