Oil fields stalled projects increase from the scourge of Iraq
9/20/2015

It is not expected that the water injection system now completed before 2020
Eventually become non-performing projects aimed at sustainable oil production record in Iraq a symbol of missed opportunities for the country is suffering from the decline in crude oil prices and the war against Daash. The government has stepped up to increase production to meet the big salaries and finance the battle against Daash that now controls large parts of the country. Iraq had hoped to increase production to more than its current level of more than 4 million barrels a day by the sea water injection from the Persian Gulf to the southern oil fields to extract the remaining resources. But now, it is not expected to be completed until 2020, seven years after the schedule for the project. Said Michael Cohen, head of commodities research at Barclays energy, he is without this project, production is expected to fall in the southern oil wells by about 10% annually.

The project strugglers become, known as Facility sea water supply, another example of how to put the infighting and bureaucratic ethnic and sectarian tensions and an end to efforts to modernize the oil sector in Iraq and moved to the ranks of global producers. Raad Alkadiri, Managing Director of the risks of the petroleum sector in IHS Energy, a company said Consulting Energy, based in Colorado, "The sea water injection project is a microcosm for all the different challenges that Iraq needs to overcome it" will add further delays to the uncertainty surrounding the oil industry in Iraq and the efforts of the government, which relies on oil to restore political stability.

In a speech drew on 6 Eul international oil companies operating in the energy sector in the country, an official at the Iraqi Oil Ministry warned that government spending for the sector will be cut in 2016, even before the warning forced Baghdad, due to lack of oil revenues, to reduce spending by nearly half which will affect the maintenance and improvement of the oil fields, ports, and pipelines in the country. And it exacerbated fears surrounding the Iraqi oil sector because of a dispute with the Kurdistan Regional Administration on oil marketing agreement through the central government. Baghdad dispute cost the revenues are in dire need of them, at a time when it could be nuclear between Iran and the six world powers agreement brings billions of barrels of oil in the global market early next year, which will put further downward pressure on prices.

Bahadli said Ali, a member of the Commission on oil in Iraq's parliament, that by the end of this year is likely to be Iraq owes more than $ 8 billion of foreign oil companies that extract oil. The government paid $ 9 billion in fees earlier this year, he wrote and Iraqi Oil Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, in an article published last month in the newspaper justice in Baghdad, said that Iraq plans to pay oil bills this year in premiums. Complain executives of foreign oil companies large that many of the Iraqi policy-makers do not take the decline in oil prices and its impact on the budget seriously adequately.

Employee said in one of the foreign oil companies operating in Iraq, "it took some time for the government to accept that there is a problem," he said "They were dependent on the rebound in oil prices to normal within a year." In August, it has been producing 4.2 million barrels per day, higher than the 3.4 million barrels in November, according to the International Energy Agency. More than three-quarters of this production came from the southern city of Basra.

Not kept pace with increased government spending after production, it is expected that the budget deficit up to $ 21 billion this year, according to official figures. At the same time, disrupted the maintenance and improvement to ensure the health of the oil industry in the long term. Mr. Cohen said Barclays "Whenever been postponed this investment is the longest, falling prices will become more aggressive."

The water injection method commonly used to replace the oil extracted replace and maintain the pressure necessary to continue production, this technique requires less and is cheaper than drilling increase the ability of energy. Before the invasion, the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iraqi companies pumping river water in the southern oil fields to keep the crude oil flow, but after that Turkey has built dams on the Tigris River, and the extent of available water for re-pumping in the oil fields, began makers Iraqi politics to consider the salt water injection project.

When planning a facility seawater supply, which began in 2009, was the target delivery of 12 million barrels of water per day for five oil fields by 2013. In 2010, it granted the government the project contract to Exxon Mobil, and a year later, however, suspended the contract after signing Oil giant oil extraction deal with their rivals the Kurds in northern Iraq. Exxon Mobil declined, along with many other major international oil companies, to comment for this article. The project was then delivered to the South Oil Company of Iraq's state-owned, which began in 2012 to study ways to pipelines and potential sites for pumping stations and water treatment plants. Gave diplomats and Iraqi politicians blame on bureaucratic infighting between the Oil Ministry and the Finance Ministry, who disagree over who should have to pay a bill for the project.

Nora Salim, a member of the committee said the economy in the parliament, as it was possible to avoid conflict if the Ministry of Oil has brought a large international oil companies for the implementation of the project rather than relying on the Ministry of Finance. In June 2014, the government went abroad again in search of a contractor for the project. She added that "the oil ministry to deal with this project more professional manner."

It did not respond to the Ministry of Oil and Ministry of Finance to repeated requests for comment. Mr. Bahadli said, to beautify the contract to foreign companies, the oil ministry decided early this year to the winner of the contract to allow access to the largest oil field, the son of Omar, untapped and underdeveloped in Iraq. The Iraqi government has pledged to award the contract before the end of 2015, but in a sign of financial distress suffered by the government, Iraqi lawmakers say they are now looking for Baghdad to pay fees for major international oil companies using oil instead of cash.

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