Iraq Plans 5 Refineries, Worth $30bn

Posted on 10 September 2011. Tags: Refineries

Bloomberg reports that Iraq is seeking about $30 billion in investment to build five new oil refineries as it plans to add enough fuel-processing capacity to avoid importing gasoline and diesel.

The projects would boost Iraq’s capacity to refine crude oil into fuel by 900,000 barrels a day, the country’s Deputy Oil Minister Ahmed al-Shamma said at the second day of the Iraq Mining 2011 conference in London.

Iraq, OPEC’s third-largest crude producer, imports about 10 million liters of gasoline each day, equal to about 30 percent of the gasoline it uses.
It is the only member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries not held to a production quota.

Four refineries planned for Kirkuk, Maysan, Nassiriyah and Karbala are in design and engineering stages and would together add 750,000 barrels a day of capacity. In addition, a proposed 150,000 barrel-a-day facility at Nineveh is at a provisional phase and would refine heavy crude once production starts at nearby oil fields.
The government also wants to add 70,000 barrels a day of capacity at an existing refinery in Basra in the country’s south early next year.

(Source: Bloomberg)

(Picture: Baiji Refinery)