Top Energy Stories

The super-giant West Qurna 2 oil field has shut down for nearly a month of maintenance, removing about 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) of production at a time when global oil prices are already spiking due to war in Ukraine and escalating sanctions on Russia. Iraq has enough spare capacity at other fields to replace the lost output — just under one-tenth of the country's production — although it is unclear how much new production is being brought online to compensate. "The field's production is fully shut down for many reasons, mostly for maintenance," said an official at the field. Production went offline on Feb. 21, the official said, and is expected to remain offline until March 14. A second official at West Qurna 2 also confirmed the field's output is entirely shut. For more information about Iraq's spare capacity and production outlook, read the full story on Iraq Oil Report.

Deadly violence and protests in Dhi Qar are destabilizing a key oil-producing province, shutting down the Nassiriya oil field and raising security concerns that could scare away foreign companies. In one recent incident, on the morning of Feb. 19, an Oil Ministry engineer was shot dead while working on a gas pipeline running between the state-run Nassiriya field and the Petronas-operated Gharraf oil field, according to three security and industry officials. The U.S. oil services company Weatherford has suspended operations in the province, according to officials at the state-run Dhi Qar Oil Company. For more on the violence, read the full story on Iraq Oil Report. And for an update on the shut-down of the 60,000 bpd Nassiriya field, read Iraq Oil Report's latest story here.

The expansion of the 210,000 bpd Shuaiba refinery in Basra been delayed further by issues relating to entry visas for some contractors, with startup of a new 70,000 bpd processing units not expected before December 2022. Work stopped due to the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and has now resumed, but progress appears to be slow. The expansion is a crucial if Iraq is to ease reliance on imports of lighter end products like gasoline. In an interview at his office in the Basra headquarters of the state-run South Refineries Company (SRC), Director General Hossam Hussein Walli discussed not only the Shuaiba expansion but also the status of other refineries in southern Iraq. Read the full interview on Iraq Oil Report.

National News

The Associated Press: Iraq’s second largest lake drying up, turning up dead fish

Iraq’s Razzaza Lake was once a tourist attraction known for its beautiful scenery and an abundance of fish that locals depended on. Now, dead fish litter its shores and the once-fertile lands around it have turned into a barren desert.

... Razzaza Lake is the latest victim of a water crisis in Iraq, known as the “Land Between the Two Rivers” — the Tigris and the Euphrates. Upstream dams in Turkey, Syria and Iran have shrunk the rivers and their tributaries, seasonal rainfall has dropped and infrastructure has fallen into disrepair.

Hundreds of families used to rely on fishing the Razzaza for their livelihood. Now the number of dead fish that turns up is bigger than the number of live fish they can catch.

Robert Tollast and Mina Aldroubi for The National: War in Ukraine to raise Iraq's multi-billion-dollar wheat import bill

Ukraine and Russia make up about 20 per cent of global wheat production and the current situation has created fierce international competition to secure supply from the Black Sea region.

... In Iraq, which has one of the largest government-run food programmes in the world, it could add up to $3bn to its bill this year, highlighting the dangerous vulnerability of the country's food supply.

... Iraq often increases imports when harvests are bad – the Norwegian Refugee Council said 37 per cent of Iraqi wheat farmers experienced crop failure through 2021 as drought returned to the country after a bumper harvest in 2019-20.

AFP: Iraq unveils restoration work at ancient city ravaged by IS

Iraq unveiled three monumental sculptures in the ancient city of Hatra Thursday, newly restored after being vandalised by militants of the Islamic State group during their brief but brutal rule.

The jihadists released video footage in 2015 of their orgy of destruction at Hatra in which they took guns and pickaxes to the once extensive remains of what was one of the leading trade entrepots between the Roman and Parthian empires in the first and second centuries AD.

A Roman-style sculpture of a life-size figure and a series of reliefs of faces on the side of the great temple were among the restored pieces shown off to journalists.

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