Crescent Petroleum, a leading energy company in the LNG-producing nation of the United Arab Emirates, has started contracts to develop three hydrocarbon fields in Iraq with the aim being to boost Iraqi natural gas resources on a fast-track basis for domestic gas-fired power plants.
Crescent is headquartered in Sharjah, the third-largest of the seven emirates that make up the UAE after Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
As the oldest and largest private upstream oil and gas company in the region Crescent’s operations have previously focused on Egypt and the Kurdistan region of Iraq.
Crescent signed three 20-year contracts to develop oil and natural gas fields in Iraq's Basra and Diyala provinces in February 2023 and the work has now started.
The UAE company plans centre on extracting natural gas from two oil and gas blocks in the country’s northern Diyala province.
Basra oil hub
A third exploration block, located in Iraq’s main oil-producing hub of Basra, will be explored and developed to add further supplies.
The Iraqi Oil Ministry announced on October 15 that the three Crescent energy contracts were now underway aimed at increasing natural gas availability.
Iraqi Oil Minister Hayan Abdul-Ghani said in a statement that the contracts concluded with Crescent are expected to help the country produce 400 million standard cubic feet per day of natural gas within 18 months.
Abdul-Ghani explained that the first step was to help Iraq reduce gas flaring and utilize the processed gas for gas-fired power generation.
The Iraqis said they were are now set on developing strategic energy projects to extract more natural gas from the nation’s vast resources.
Crescent will build a processing plant on site as well as pipelines and infrastructure to supply the gas.
Iraq is the second-largest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and depends on oil revenue to meet 90 percent of government expenditure.
Exports
The country exports about 3.3 million barrels of oil per day, while production in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region amounts to more than 450,000 barrels per day.
Power plants in Iraq currently depend on gas imports from Iran and which cover one-third of the country’s energy needs.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan stated recently that the Central Asian former Soviet Republic planned to sell 10 billion cubic metres of natural gas annually to Iraq through a swap arrangement with Iran.
The Iraqi Minister of Electricity, Ziyad Ali Fadel, said that Iraq would receive gas from Turkmenistan through the pipeline network from Iran and the volumes would be supplied to gas-fired power plants.
