Chinese independent Geo-Jade, in a consortium with local firm Basra Crescent, signed a Heads of Agreement with Basra Oil Company on 12 May for an ‘integrated project’ to develop Iraq’s 30,000 b/d-capacity Tuba oilfield. They will increase capacity at the field to 200,000 b/d, process 50mn cfd of associated gas, build an 800 t/y polyethylene and polypropylene plant, a fertilizers plant and 1.4GW of combined gas and solar power capacity. A proposal seen by MEES last year put capital requirements at $17bn (MEES, 8 March 2024), with Geo-Jade claiming to have secured technical and financial backing from several state and private-owned Chinese entities including subsidiaries of CNPC and Sinomach.
Iraq has a long track record of trying to bundle developments into integrated projects, but the approach has often proved overly complex and commercially unfeasible given huge up-front capital requirements and Iraq’s insistence on tight investor returns. This changed with TotalEnergies’ $27bn GGIP project which bundled gas processing, water treatment and solar with Ratawi field development (MEES, 14 July 2023). (CONTINUED - 226 WORDS)