Iraq's oil minister has discussed with BP raising output capacity at the 1.5mn b/d Rumaila field — the country's biggest oil producing field — to 1.7mn b/d.
During a visit to London, oil minister Ihsan Ismael and BP chief executive Bernard Looney discussed ways to support development plans and programs for Rumaila "in order to achieve the goal of peak production of 1.7mn b/d," the oil ministry said today, 26 May. They also discussed ways for BP to utilise the gas associated with oil operations at Rumaila, and talked about co-operation in clean energy.
The Iraqi government's move is aimed to placate a major investor in its upstream sector at a time when several foreign oil firms — which are crucial to Baghdad achieving its target of 6mn b/d of crude capacity by the end of 2027 — are exiting or expressing their discontent. BP had planned to pull out of Rumaila in 2021 as part of its transition to a lower-carbon future, but the government approved a plan for it to spin off the business into a separate entity owned by BP and China's state-controlled CNPC.
In April, Iraq hit its Opec+ crude production quota for the first time since November 2021. The country's upstream sector has been challenged by a political deadlock in Baghdad, where efforts to form a new government have stalled, and by export capacity constraints.
