Por Ahmed Rashid
BAGHDAD, Sept 5 (Reuters) – France’s Total will build four massive energy projects in southern Iraq under a $ 27 billion deal signed in Baghdad on Sunday, the Iraqi oil minister said.
The company will start with an initial investment of 10 billion dollars, said CEO Patrick Pouyanne, adding that engineering work will begin “immediately.”
Iraqi Oil Minister Ihsan Abdul Jabbar said the first phase will include a $ 3 billion investment by the French group in a project to inject seawater into oil fields to improve oil recovery.
Total will also provide $ 2 billion to build a gas processing plant that is mined in the southern fields of West Qurna 2, Majnoon, Artawi, Tuba and Luhais.
The plant is expected to produce 300 million cubic feet of gas per day (mcf / d) and double that after a second phase of development, said Jabbar, adding that the gas produced by Total’s project will help Iraq reduce its gas imports from Iran.
The other two projects are a solar power plant and one to increase crude production from the Artawi oil field.
Total will help boost production from the Artawi oil field to 210,000 barrels per day of oil (bpd) from the current 85,000 bpd, according to a statement from the oil ministry.
(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed, written by Maher Chmaytelli. Edited in Spanish by Javier Leira)
