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The announcement of the agreement on “framework contracts” between Iraq and the French company Total, in the field of energy, amounting to 27 billion dollars, has aroused the interest of the industrial sector from the southern province of Basra, according to the engineer’s description. and owner of towers in the province, Moncef Al-Badran.
Al-Badran typically works on urgent replacement of spare parts for machinery and equipment needed by small businesses operating in the governorate’s oil and power sectors, and employs 10 “qualified” technicians in his workshop.
“The new contracts mean the sustainability of work in one way or another, even though big companies like Total do not contract with small companies like ours, but energy companies contract with small local companies, and these are our clients, ”Al-Badran told Al. -Hourra.
Al-Badran has invested thousands of dollars in his workshop. He also made sure that his workers obtained internationally recognized industrial certificates. He says that “this investment is dangerous in a country like Iraq, but its returns are high if all goes well.”
“Basra will take the lion’s share of the new contracts, as most of Iraq’s oil production comes from this province,” said Salim Daoud, an economist in Basra.
Nevertheless, “the profit that Basra derives from its oil resources is not proportional to the amount of environmental and economic losses to which it is exposed”, according to Daoud, and “international oil companies sometimes warn against working in the areas of the province where the armed tribal problems are increasing, “he told the” Al-Hurra “website.
Thousands of people from Basra and neighboring provinces work in the province’s oil sector, which provides significant direct economic resources to the market, says Daoud, “but the government needs to do more and open vocational qualification courses that make it international. businesses more dependent on local and visual labor in particular. ” “.
The umbrella of contracts signed by Iraq and Total “initialized” included four projects, with a total value of $ 27 billion, while the total return on profits during the term of the contract reached $ 95 billion, in calculating the price of a barrel of 50 dollars, according to the statement of the Iraqi government.
The Iraqi Prime Minister’s economic adviser, Mazhar Muhammad Salih, told Al-Hurra that the contracts signed reflect two important elements, the first being that “the investment costs indicate high reduction efficiency and reduce waste due to from their reduction to perhaps half the size of globally negotiated costs. “
The second question, according to Saleh, is that “the production capacities, whether in the field of the development of the crude oil wells of the large field, the exploitation of associated gas and the production of electricity with alternative energies. both were subjected to technical and economic feasibility studies. studies that show a high return on adopting an average barrel of oil at a reasonable hypothetical average price. It is $ 50, which reflects the rationality of the estimates on the level of production efficiency and long-term performance.
Saleh says, “The studies mentioned also show that the yield of crude oil obtained after development alone will be more than three or four times the total cost of the project itself, considering the importance of exploiting the gas instead. to burn it.
Saleh describes the exploitation of solar energy in the production of electricity, large or large scale, as “the most important event in the economic history of Iraq, where for the first time in the electricity will be produced by central generation with solar energy. . .
Saleh adds that “the project will offer thousands of opportunities to Iraqi workers, technicians and engineers and bring Iraq into a more advanced technological era”, adding: “The project with its three pillars, in addition to the power supply project. in water from the oil fields, which constitutes the fourth pillar of the oil infrastructure of the oil fields and to increase its productivity in a sustainable manner, will be a strong lever in the service of the economies of southern Iraq and their advancement.
The four projects are the development of the Artawi oil field and the doubling of production by about one and a half times, the construction of the Artawi gas complex with a capacity of 600 million standard square feet, a processing plant seawater with a volume of 7.5 million barrels of water per day and a solar power plant with a capacity of 1000 megawatts.
An Iraqi economist, Ahmed Muhanna, told Al-Hurra that “solar energy represents a commitment by the Iraqi government to the renewable energy projects that it announced some time ago,” adding that “the gas projects associated with oil extraction will help improve the environment significantly. “
Iraq is considered one of the hottest countries in the world for gas associated with oil extraction, while at the same time it imports large amounts of gas and electricity from Iran.
“The Iraqis need to make a qualitative leap in the energy sector, which has suffered from a continuous technological lag since 2003,” said Salama Sumaisem, economist and former government adviser.
While the deal is “important,” Sumaisem says, it “comes late,” and it also raises questions about how much sufficiency it will provide to Iraq from the gas “we import from Iran,” asking, “Can this deal provide Iraq with enough electricity and gas to compensate, on Iranian gas and Iraqi debt reduction through imports?”
Salama said: “Talking about employing 50,000 people is a very important issue, as it will help generate income in Iraq and move the economy forward, albeit slowly.
Iraq produces about 3.8 million barrels per day (June and May figures) of crude oil, as it seeks to increase that production through new oil fields and the development of working fields.
Natural gas reserves are estimated at 132 trillion cubic feet, which ranks 11th in the world for gas reserves, but burns the equivalent of 62% of its gas production.
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