Overview
FGE’s Iraq Oil and Gas Monthly builds upon decades of research, consulting, and client driven insights to provide a detailed and comprehensive analysis of Iraq’s oil and gas industry.
Iraq has been a key contributor to OPEC liquids growth, with the country having added 300,000 b/d year-on-year to its production capacity from 2010-2015 and almost 900,000 b/d in total during the 2017-2022 period, although the nation has since had to cut back on production due to a combination of the northern pipeline outage and OPEC+ cuts.
Over the next decade, Iraq’s upstream development will prove to be more costly and complex. Beyond the need to manage the transition from primary to secondary oil recovery – increasing the need for water injection schemes – operators face a host of challenges: a greater focus on gas treatment projects, degassing station upgrades, addressing midstream infrastructure bottlenecks and managing relations with Iraq’s political machinery.
At the same time, the country is slowly but surely expanding its gas supply through new upstream and flare gas recovery projects. In parallel, Iraq is working on its power sector to expand generation and transmission capacities from both fossil fuel based and renewable sources. Meanwhile existing and prospective gas and power trade deals will contribute a major part of Iraq’s energy balance in the years ahead.
For traders, Iraqi crude exports are keenly watched in East of Suez markets. Key demand centres – particularly India and China – rely on a regular flow of medium-heavy crude from the country. In the products market, Iraq’s role as a gasoline importer and fuel exporter highlights the growing importance of understanding the country’s fuel balances. Recent developments in the natural gas and NGLs space have also put the country on the watch list of NGLs traders. Gas and power sector developments also impact liquid trade out of the country through additional supply (of NGLs) and by lowering demand (through fuel substitution).