Chinese companies are increasingly entering the oil and gas exploration market. They have already won five bids for exploration of Iraqi deposits – the only ones from foreigners, by the way.
CNOOC Iraq has won the tender to develop Iraq’s Block 7 for oil exploration, which stretches across the country’s central and southern provinces of Diwaniyah, Babil, Najaf, Wasit and Muthanna, Oil Minister Hayan Abdul Ghani said.
ZhenHua, Anton Oilfield Services and Sinopec won bids to develop the Abu Khaimah oil field in Muthanna, the Dufriya oil field in Wasit and the Sumer oil field in Muthanna.
China’s Geo-Jade won the tender to develop Iraq’s Jabal Sanam field for oil exploration in Basra province, the Iraqi oil minister added.
These Chinese companies were the only foreign players to win the bid, receiving licenses for 10 oil and gas fields. The Iraqi-Kurdish company KAR Group took two more licenses at the auction. The agency notes that no American oil companies were involved, even after Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shiite met with representatives of American companies during an official visit to the United States last month.
According to Reuters, production licenses for 29 projects, including these 12, are aimed at increasing production for domestic consumption – not for export. Baghdad is most interested in increasing gas production, which the country needs to develop electricity generation. Currently, Iraq has to import methane from Iran, which is an additional expense.
However, investors have not yet become interested in gas fields.
We can only add that the Iraqi €27 billion project of the French TotalEnergies includes a subproject for the use of associated petroleum gas for power generation. But obviously, this subproject has not yet reached the implementation stage.
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