Iraq awards contract to US firm to capture flared gas

23 January 2018
Orion Gas Processors will build facilities to capture gas lost in flaring from a key southern Iraq oil and gas field

Iraq has signed a deal with US gas services provider Orion to process natural gas extracted at its Nahr Bin Omar oil and gas field.

The memorandum of understanding, signed in Baghdad by representatives of Iraq’s Oil Ministry and Orion Gas Processors, will allow the US company to build facilities to capture the gas from the field located in southern Iraq and to convert it into usable fuel.

Nahr Bin Omar, operated by state-run Basra Oil Company (previously the South Oil Company), is producing more than 30,000 barrels a day of oil (bpd) and has an estimated associated gas reserve of 12 trillion cubic feet.

Orion will capture and process 100 to 150 mcf/d of gas, Iraq’s Oil Minister Jabbar Al-Luiebi said at the ceremony, according to Reuters.

The gas captured will be used to feed power stations and to produce up to 10 million litres of gasoline, equivalent to 32 per cent of Iraq’s total imports of the fuel, he said.

Gas flaring across Iraq should end by 2021, he added.

Iraq continues to flare some of the gas extracted alongside crude oil at its fields because it lacks the facilities to process it into fuel for local consumption or exports.

In July last year, the Oil Ministry awarded a contract to another US energy services firm Baker Hughes, a GE Company (BHGE) to reduce flare gas emissions and generate up to 200 mcf/d of gas.

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