Iraq to up oil output to 3.5m bpd by 2009

Plans pipelines to supply oil, gas to Syria, Iran

Iraq plans to raise crude oil production to 3.5 million barrels per day by the end of 2009 and and will build pipelines to supply oil and gas to Syria and Iran, Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani said yesterday.

Shahristani told reporters that Iraq would supply Syria with 50 million cubic feet of gas a day and Iran with 100,000 bpd of crude through pipelines that would be built in the coming year.
The tender to build the Iraqi side of the small pipeline to Deir al-Zour in eastern Syria would be launched in September, Shahristani said on the sidelines of a conference in Dubai. He said the deal with Iran would involve building a pipeline from Iraq’s southern city of Basra to Iran’s Abadan refinery.

Overall, the OPEC producer sees its crude output rising to 6 million bpd over the next 10 years from 2.5 million now, but its plans depend on the security situation. Sabotage has plagued Iraq’s oil sector since the US-led invasion of 2003 sparked an insurgency and the country, which has the world’s third-largest oil reserves, has not been able to raise production to pre-war levels of almost 3 million bpd.

Shahristani said he did not expect the withdrawal of British troops from southern Iraq to expose facilities in the region, home to most of the country’s oil reserves, to more attacks. “The pullout of the British troops has no impact on oil facilities because they were not protecting these installations.”

“This is the responsibility of the ministry of oil,” he said.

“We see a substantial increase in oil and gas resources and a doubling of oil production.”

Growth also hinges on a long-awaited federal hydrocarbons law that aims to unlock billions in potential foreign investment by setting ground rules for operation.

Bahrain Tribune