Shafaq News- Basra
Iraq is proceeding with the execution phases of the Basra-Haditha crude oil pipeline while manufacturing of the project's pipes remains underway, according to officials and an oil expert who spoke to Shafaq News.
The project, one of the largest domestic crude transport schemes in Iraq, is intended to expand export outlets and connect southern oil fields to new routes.
The pipeline was originally designed to run beyond Haditha, a city in Iraq's western al-Anbar province, and reach the Jordanian port of Aqaba, oil expert Hamza al-Jawahiri told Shafaq News. It was later divided into two separate projects: a Basra-Haditha line with a capacity of 2.25 million barrels per day, and a Haditha-Aqaba line with a capacity of one million barrels per day. Iraq will bear the full cost of building and operating the first segment.
The second segment, according to al-Jawahiri, would supply Jordan with about 200,000 barrels per day and export 300,000 barrels per day to Egypt, with additional volumes allocated to a refinery planned at Aqaba that he said is believed to have a capacity of roughly 150,000 barrels per day. He added that Iraq would also cover construction and operating costs for that refinery and for the export terminal at Aqaba, and that no details have been announced on refinery ownership or on which party would purchase its refined products.
Several files tied to the second segment remain unresolved among the beneficiary parties. al-Jawahiri noted that officials had previously stated the project would be confined to the Basra-Haditha line, with any country seeking to buy Iraqi crude at Haditha required to build its own pipeline at its own expense. “Is there any viability of the project if no country submits a request to purchase crude from that point?”
Manufacturing And Supply Chain
Abbas Mohammed al-Asadi, director general of the State Company for Iron and Steel, said that execution of the project's two pipe manufacturing contracts was affected by security conditions in the region and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, as the disruption halted deliveries of imported billet from South Korea and Japan, despite contracts the investing company had concluded with Japanese, Korean and German firms to supply raw materials for manufacturing.
“The company's pipe plant is ready to begin production as soon as raw materials arrive,” al-Asadi said, adding that the Iraqi cabinet approved a mechanism allowing part of the manufacturing to be carried out outside Iraq to work around the exceptional circumstances and keep the project moving.
The Basra-Halfaya contract has been completed, al-Asadi said, while work continues on the Basra-Haditha contract, which covers the manufacture of 380 kilometers of pipe with a diameter of 56 inches.
An oil source told Shafaq News that the pipe manufacturing contract remains in its execution stages, and that the State Company for Iron and Steel had signed the contract and referred it to an investor operating inside the pipe plant, but that the delayed arrival of billet prevented manufacturing from starting in Iraq. The same source said the manufacturing work is now set to be carried out in India once the raw materials are transferred from South Korea and Japan, with the pipes to be transported overland through Jordan and final inspection and acceptance conducted inside Iraq.