Iraq’s Oil Ministry this week signed an MoU with Dutch firm Royal Boskalis to build an “industrial island” offshore Iraq’s Gulf coast in a bid to tackle the country’s severe export capacity constraints.

The project seeks to increase Iraq’s southern export capacity by 3mn b/d through the construction of an ‘integrated artificial island’ with four berths supplied by two offshore pipelines from the onshore storage terminal at Fao (see map). The agreement also calls for 6mn barrels in additional storage capacity to be added – presumably on the island. (CONTINUED - 597 WORDS)