Iraq is looking for foreign partners to build and operate a second venture to process gas released as a by-product of oil production in its southern fields, state-run South Gas Company said this week.
The new venture will collect gas currently being flared because of a lack of processing capacity, South Gas Co director general Ihsan Abdul Jabbar told Reuters in Basra, southern Iraq.
To promote competition, the new partners cannot be Shell or Mitsubishi , as the two are part of Basrah Gas Co, the first gas processing venture which came on-stream in 2013, in partnership with South Gas Co, he said.
About 600mn cubic feet (17mn cubic metres) a day of gas are currently being flared from the southern fields and 700mn cubic feet per day processed, said Abdul Jabbar, also chairman of Basrah Gas.
Basrah Gas hopes to increase the volume of gas processed to nearly 1bn cubic feet a day by the end of the year, he said. The gas processed is fed into the local grid and some of it exported as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and condensates.
Iraq expects to almost triple the revenue of LPG and condensate exports this year to more than $200mn, from $69mn in 2016, said Abdul Jabbar.
Iraq has some of the world’s largest oil reserves but most of its gas is a by-product of crude oil production. It is scheduled to bring on-stream its first dedicated natural gas field, Siba, in mid-2017.
