Iraq’s North Oil Company spokesman said on Friday that the company would raise production by 50,000 barrels per day to supply the Baiji refinery.
The source said Oil Minister Hayan Abdul Ghani had instructed North Oil Company to increase the output to record levels. With more than 350,000 bpd in capacity, the Baiji refinery cannot handle current production of 350,000 bpd from the Kirkuk oil fields.
The company, based on the source, has made huge efforts to develop oil fields and increase production to ease the flow of crude oil within working stations. It also finalized the replacement of crude oil pipelines from the Batma station to the Ain Zala station within the Nineveh oil fields.
The source further states that the company will increase 50,000 bpd from the Nineveh fields in the near future.
The company, early this week, said technical and engineering staff were working hard to increase production to 10,000 BPD and had re-operated an oil well in the Nineveh Batma field.
An engineering and technical team has started working on a scheme to upgrade and increase the capacities of all oil fields in the province of Nineveh to boost production and support the national economy, as well as contribute to the generation of state revenues, according to a source.
On this, oil expert Ali Khalil mentions that Batma oil field and the Ain Zala field were discovered respectively in 1953 and 1939 in Nineveh. Many of Nineveh’s oil sites were explored continuously after 2003 as part of oil licensing rounds.
He claimed that the federal Ministry of Oil is developing some four oil fields, located in: Sassan near Badush, Allan close to Al-AYadiya in the western part of Nineveh, Qasab and Jawan south of Mosul Qayyarah, Najma, Ain Zala, Batma, and Saifa.
Khalil went on to add that in December of 1932, the Mosul oil reserves were finally discovered by Iraqi, Italian, British, German, French, Dutch, and Swiss businesses. During this time 71 wells were discovered, but only 27 were put to use with 10 big wells that differed in their output of oil.
He indicated that with the Nineveh fields capable of producing 150,000 barrels daily, North Oil Company should concentrate more on the fields with over 500,000 daily production.
