São Paulo – Iraq wants to build new pipelines in the South of the country to boost the oil export capacity of the region, whose output is poised to go up in coming years. The new pipelines will be 300 kilometres long, with a diameter of one meter, broader than the current 71 centimetres. The information was released last Wednesday (23rd) by Qatar’s Al Jazeera TV.
The announcement was made by Ali Maarij, president of Iraq’s government-owned Missan Oil Company. According to him, the new pipelines will carry oil from the fields of Maysan, Halfaya and other smaller fields in the South of the country.
According to a Al Jazeera, the Maysan fields contain 2.5 billion barrels worth of reserves. Maarij said the region’s current output is 230,000 barrels of oil per day. The new pipelines will be inaugurated in early 2014; by then, the country plans on increasing the regional output to 400,000 barrels per day.
Construction of the pipelines will be entrusted to a Chinese company, which is set to sign a US$ 650 million contract to carry out the works. Once ready, the pipelines will carry crude oil from the Southern Iraq fields to warehouses in the Al-Faw Peninsula, and from there to floating platforms in the Gulf.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
