Iraq’s oil ministry announced on 19 February that progress at the under-construction 300mn cfd Halfaya gas processing facility had reached 51%. The project which was awarded in 2019 processes gas captured at the CNPC operated 400,000 b/d oil field in Maysan province south of Baghdad. Start up was originally slated for this year before being pushed to 2023 (MEES, 23 October 2020). Now, INOC subsidiary Missan Oil Company director general Ali Jasim says that “testing operations” will begin in mid-2023, implying further delays at the project being delivered by CNPC’s engineering arm CPECC. Mr Jasim says that the project is “scalable in the future” to include raw gas from Missan-operated Amara and Noor fields in addition to CNOOC’s Missan Cluster.
Iraq flares over 50% of gross gas output almost all of which is associated with oil production. Some 1.36bn cfd of 2.67bn cfd gross output was flared for 9M 2021. At the same time the country is reliant on costly gas imports (MEES, 25 February). More gas processing capacity is urgently needed. But Halfaya is not the only project to have seen delays. In nearby Basra province, a new 200mn cfd Basrah Gas Company (South Gas 51%, Shell 44%, Mitsubishi 5%) processing train has seen start-up pushed back from this year to 2023 (MEES, 24 December 2021). (CONTINUED - 267 WORDS)