Iraq’s Dhi Qar Oil Company has achieved its gas production target of 50 million cubic feet a day (cf/d) from the Nassiriya field in the southern Dhi Qar province, the oil ministry said in a statement on 30 September.

Iraq has long tried to get international oil companies to develop Nassiriya with international oil company support, even pairing the field with a major greenfield refinery construction megaproject. But after years of struggling to attract investment the oil ministry was forced to rely on its own “national efforts” to move ahead, and formed a new state oil company: Dhi Qar Oil Company.

The new associated gas production is part of a wider plan to boost gas production to 200 million cf/d from fields in the province, oil minister Jabbar al-Luaibi said in the statement.

While its oil production has soared, so has the amount of associated gas Iraq has been forced to burn because it lacks the infrastructure to utilise the valuable resource. According to data from the oil ministry, Iraq flared 55 per cent of the 2,893 billion cf/d of associated gas it produced in July.

The oil ministry signed a deal in January with US energy company Orion to build facilities to capture and process the gas extracted at the Nahr Bin Omar oil field in the south of Iraq. The field, which is operated by state-owned Basra Oil Company, produces around 40,000 barrels a day (b/d) of oil, and Baghdad hopes to capture as much as 150 million cf/d of gas from the field.

Gas from the fields will be used to supply power projects in the south of Iraq, along with planned cement and petrochemicals industries, and liquid petroleum gas, Al-Luaibi said. The country’s biggest gas capture and utilisation scheme is being developed by Basra Gas Company, a joint venture between Iraq’s South Gas Company, Shell and Mitsubishi, and is leading the way to halting flaring by 2021.