Iraq, one of the world’s largest oil producers with daily output of around 4.3mn barrels, is planning to pump around 1mn barrels per day via a pipeline to Jordan’s only port, Aqaba, on the Red Sea, according to The National.
“That project is still in place and we’re going to go ahead with it. We need another outlet for our crude oil,” Ali Nazar Faeq Al Shatari, deputy director general of Iraq’s state-owned oil marketer SOMO told the Abu Dhabi based daily.
Much of the oil would be earmarked for Jordan’s developing refinery at Zarqa, and then utilised for Jordanian domestic use, with the remainder exported to international markets.
Presently much of Iraq’s oil is exported through its major terminal in Basra, in the south of the country, while last week Oil Minister Jabar Al Luaibi revealed that scores of bids had been received to build a 350 kilometre section of pipeline in the north, linking the Kirkuk oilfields with the strategic Ceyhan terminal in Turkey.
There is little detail on the timeline for the proposed pipeline but at the end of last year, Iraq’s State Company for Oil Projects, invited bids for the first phase of the scheme which would link Basra to an energy station at Najaf.
Iraq is also currently ramping up its daily production with a target of 6.5mn barrels by 2022.
