A government intent to increase oil derivatives production

INA - BAGHDAD 

The Parliamentary Oil, Gas and Natural Resources Committee confirmed the government's intention to increase the production of oil derivatives locally. It determined the amount of oil reserves discovered so far.

"The committee called on the government and the Finance Committee to assign the Basra Oil Company and extractive companies, as to give them a sufficient share of the budget to carry out their work. This comes due to the fact that oil production needs allocations to increase production and storage capacity, as well as increase export capacity. There is a need to pay attention to export outlets and ports because of their importance in supplying the budget with funds," said the deputy head of the committee, Adnan Al-Jabri, to the Iraqi News Agency - INA.
 
He noted, "The efforts of the Oil, Gas and Natural Resources Committee and the Public Prosecution continue to follow up on all oil companies, whether government companies or companies contracting with the Ministry of Oil in licensing rounds."

"The government's plan includes increasing the production of oil derivatives locally and thus preserving the hard currency inside Iraq, and avoiding material losses estimated at five billion dollars annually to import oil derivatives. The committee is supportive of the government's directions to invest in natural gas to generate electricity or to use it in industry and avoid importing gas, which costs Iraq huge sums," he explained.

Al-Jabri stressed, "Increasing the production of gas and oil derivatives locally will help stabilize the market and contribute to providing job opportunities for thousands of unemployed."

Regarding the amount of discovered oil reserves, Al-Jabri stated that "the discovered reserves amount to 154 billion barrels, as there are other undiscovered quantities," calling on "the Ministry of Oil to launch a campaign to explore oil in all Iraqi governorates to increase the reserves and then invite international companies to invest to enhance production, whether from crude oil or gas."

"There is a tendency to resume production from the northern oil fields. An agreement was made to export or use crude oil from the Qayyarah field, which included the allocations for this field in the budget," he pointed out, explaining that "the production of the northern fields is very important and achieves balance in Iraqi oil production and contributes to supplying the general budget with additional financial allocations."