Top Energy Stories

Iraq produced 4.05 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil in June, slightly lower than May output of 4.10 million bpd, according to an independent field-by-field tally of nationwide production by Iraq Oil Report. The country has averaged 4.08 million bpd in the first half of 2021, slightly higher than its output targets under an OPEC-plus production agreement. Those constraints are set to ease further after the group reached a deal on July 18 that will enable member countries to bring more production online and slightly reduce Iraq's proportional share of future cuts. Read the full story on Iraq Oil Report.

Three fires struck Basra oil facilities in separate and seemingly unrelated incidents on a single day last week. The incidents had no significant impact on oil and gas operations, but they highlight the ways in which the lax safety standards and poor management of public infrastructure that recently caused two devastating hospital fires can also affect Iraq’s oil sector. On July 15, a fire broke out in a crude booster facility of a gas separation plant at the West Qurna 1 oil field; at the Basra refinery complex, a truck loading naphtha, a highly flammable refined oil product, caught fire; and an electrical fire broke out in a building housing the offices of the state-run Basra Oil Company (BOC), which oversees oil and gas operations in the province. Read the full story on Iraq Oil Report.

National News

The self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) militant group claimed a suicide bomb attack that killed at least 35 people and injured more than 60 in the Sadr City area of Baghdad on July 20, the eve of the Eid al-Adha festival, according to Reuters. Iraqi President Barham Salih wrote on Twitter: "With an awful crime they target civilians in Sadr city on the eve of Eid.... We will not rest before terrorism is cut off by its roots." IS attacks are not as common as they once were in the capital. IS last hit Sadr City in April when a car bomb killed 20. Before that, the group claimed responsibility for a January bomb attack in Tayaran Square, killing 30.

The U.S. and Iraq are set to formalize the end of the U.S. combat mission in Iraq by the end of this year, U.S. officials told Reuters. There are 2,500 U.S. troops in Iraq focused on countering IS, but the move won’t have a major impact since the U.S. has already started shifting resources away from combat and more towards training Iraqi forces. The announcement — set to come from U.S. President Joe Biden next week, following a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Kadhimi — could be viewed as a victory domestically in Baghdad. A U.S. defense official told the news agency: “The mission doesn’t change…. How we support the Iraqi security forces in the defeat ISIS mission is what we’re talking about.” The new focus going forward will be on logistics, maintenance of equipment, and helping Iraqi forces further develop their intelligence and surveillance capabilities, according to Reuters.

President Salih’s phone number was on a list of 50,000 numbers selected for possible surveillance using Pegasus spyware, according to Reuters citing the Washington Post. It was reportedly not possible to tell if Salih’s phone was infected with Pegasus, the signature spyware exported by Israeli company NSO Group. Salih was among three presidents, 10 prime ministers, and a king whose phone numbers were on the list of potential surveillance targets, according to Reuters.

Over the past two years, Muqtada al-Sadr’s movement has “quietly come to dominate the apparatus of the Iraqi state.” According to an investigation by John Davison and Ahmed Rasheed of Reuters, Sadrists hold senior jobs in key ministries, and have their pick of roles at state oil, electricity and transport bodies as well as Iraq’s banks. These positions have brought the group financial power. The Sadrists are also due to win big in the general election set for October. The reporters write that the growing Sadrist influence could pose a problem for both the U.S. and Iran, whom Sadr accuses of meddling in Iraq, although some western diplomats told the news agency that they would rather deal with Sadr than his Iran-backed Shiite rivals.

Commentary and Analysis

Public anger is boiling over after a series of catastrophes. Following the fire in the al-Hussein Hospital in Nassiriya on July 13, feelings of mourning are turning into public anger, writes Yesar al-Maleki for the Middle East Institute. Iraqis are tired of being martyrs in waiting, he writes. Public anger at youth unemployment, inadequate public services, and endemic corruption is fertile ground for activism against the Shia ruling class. Following the fire, youngsters in Nassiriya were chanting “Revolution ya Ali!” in a reference to an adored Shia figure associated with justice, Maleki writes, adding that this anger could lead to carnage in Iraq’s key oil-producing provinces. In Baghdad, after a power outage at al-Kindi hospital shut down ventilators and killed patients, Maleki writes that armed relatives attacked the facility.

Corruption and mismanagement point to systemic failures of governance. On the eve of Kadhimi’s trip to Washington, Renad Mansour writes that Iraqis increasingly see government corruption and mismanagement as the root of their suffering. Despite these failures, Iraqis do not see voting in national elections scheduled for October as a way to bring about change. Iraqis remain unconvinced by the record of Kadhimi so far, he writes, because people are concerned with Iraq’s failing system of governance, not just petty or small-scale personal corruption. Their concerns focus on the way that major political parties share wealth and power gained by their access to the government, without ensuring basic safety at hospitals or a supply of electricity. For Iraqis, jailing individual officials over personal enrichment is not cutting it. Mansour adds that Iraq’s technocrats have also failed to push for reform. “A consequence of this system is the negligence that leads to poor services — and deaths.”

Basra’s water infrastructure needs urgent reconstruction. For the LSE’s Middle East Institute, Azhar al-Rubaie, Michael Mason and Zainab Mehdi examine the water infrastructure crisis in Basra. The authors describe the reasons behind the deterioration of Basra’s water infrastructure. They write that plans for mega water infrastructure projects have stalled in the face of corruption, and that the high salt content of the water from the Shatt al-Arab is restricting water treatment plants. Supply flows are also impacted by dam projects upstream, climate change, pollution, and illegal water tapping. They conclude that population growth means there is a pressing policy need to diversity water sources for Basra and improve the efficiencies of treatment technologies and distribution networks.

How to move away from daydreams and towards a more democratic Iraq? The Iraqi writer who publishes under the pen name Local Observer asks the question of how it is possible to establish democratic rule in Iraq when the country is unable to break the hold of the patriarchy. A tolerant Iraq where a female civil servant can live freely simply doesn’t exist, she writes, and imagining that it does takes us further away from real progress. Local Observer concludes that real progress can only be made in Iraq when fantasies stop about an “idealized” Iraq, and work towards a better future takes place in a “step by step… pragmatic fashion.” She writes: “The current situation in Iraq is ABYSMAL to put it mildly, but our collective energy and resources must be utilized for thinking about realistic, achievable solutions and patiently seeing these solutions through instead of wallowing in 'what could have been' scenarios.”

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