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Iraq flares around 45% of its associated gas

It is in talks with IOCs to develop two non-associated gas fields

Iraq is world's second worst gas flaring country after Russia

Iraq expects to end gas flaring at its oil fields by 2027, as OPEC's second biggest producer seeks help from international oil companies to help capture associated gas production, an oil ministry official told S&P Global Platts Nov. 22.

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"I am optimistic in 2026-2027 gas flaring will end," Ali Hammood, general director of the oil ministry's technical directorate said on the sidelines of the IBBC conference in Dubai.

Iraq is implementing various gas capture projects with the help of IOCs to capture associated gas.

Iraq currently flares nearly 45% of its 2.8 bcf/d of gas production, Hammood said.

These projects currently under development should help reduce the associated gas that is being flared.

Iraq was the world's second-worst flaring country after Russia in 2020, burning some 17.37 Bcm of gas last year, according to the World Bank. Iraq has been the world's second-worst gas-flaring nation since at least 2016, World Bank figures showed.

The oil ministry is also in negotiations with IOCs to develop non-associated gas from two fields, Akkas and Mansuriyah, Hammood said.

Iraq needs to boost gas production because it is under increasing pressure from Washington to wean itself off electricity and gas imports from Iran, which has been subject to US sanctions since 2018.

The US administration has been granting Iraq waivers since 2018 to continue importing Iranian energy.

Intermittent supply of gas and electricity from Iran has led to widespread power shortages in Iraq this summer, when temperatures have soared to 50 C, especially in the south.

Adding to Iran's outage is the difficulty Iraq is facing in paying billions of dollars of dues to sanctions-hit Tehran, complicating Baghdad's ability to settle its arrears without the threat of financial repercussions.

Iraq has struck several agreements with IOCs to capture its gas.

The country signed $27 billion worth of projects with TotalEnergies, including a $2 billion gas gathering project.

The Ar-Ratawi gas gathering network and treatment units will have a capacity of 600 MMcf/d to capture flared gas. The project will also produce 12,000 b/d of condensate and 3,000 mt/d of LPG to be used in the domestic market.

The gas project will help reduce reliance on Iranian imports as well as lower burning of liquid fuels for power generation, which amount to 200,000 b/d, oil minister Ihsan Ismaael said at a press conference Sept. 5. Currently, Iraq pays Iran $8/MMBtu for gas, while the Ar-Ratawi project will deliver gas at a cost of $1.50-$2/MMBtu, the minister said at the time.

State-owned South Gas Co. and Baker Hughes plan to develop a 200 MMcf/d gas recovery project in the south following a three-year delay, the oil minister said Sept. 19.

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Iraq eyes ending gas flaring by 2027, as it courts IOCs to capture associated output - S&P Global

Iraq doesnt plan to normalize ties with Israel in the near future, its Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein told a security conference in Bahrain over the weekend.

This is a very difficult issue and has to do with many reasons. Of course, I am not here to explain the reasons, but the answer to this question is no, Hussein said.

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Bahrains Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani, in contrast, spoke in Manama of his countrys support for its ties with Israel and the Abraham Accords, under which those ties were forged in 2020. Other Abraham Accord countries include the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan.

The Abraham Accords have also been viewed as a regional alliance against Iran. Zayani dismissed that view.

We are not forming a bloc against any country. The Abraham Accords are a path of peace, not only between the two countries. We hope its time that peace will spill over to the whole region. That is the objective, Zayani said.

There are millions of young people in the Middle East who are deprived of education, health and clean water, he said. It is important to explore venues to give those millions of people hope, he explained.

The vision of peace, he said, should include all the countries in the Middle East, including Israel and Iran, he said.

We can live all together in one region. We call this for all, including the Iranians, including the Israelis and all who are in the region, Zayani said.

For regional peace to occur, however, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must be resolved, he added.

We say that everywhere, and we advocate it, and we believe in it. We believe that this is the only way to reach a prosperous, safe and secure region, Zayani said.

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Iraq won't be part of the Abraham Accords, FM says - The Jerusalem Post

Issued on: 22/11/2021 - 04:42Modified: 22/11/2021 - 04:40

Mosul (Iraq) (AFP) From the rubble of Iraq's war-ravaged city of Mosul arises the sight of androids gliding back and forth in a restaurant to serve their amused clientele.

"Welcome", "We wish you a good time in our restaurant", "We would be happy to have your opinion on the quality of the service", chime the automated attendants, red eyes blinking out of their shiny blue and white exteriors.

"On television, you see robots and touch-screen tables in the United Arab Emirates, Spain and Japan," said Rami Chkib Abdelrahman, proud owner of the White Fox which opened in June.

"I'm trying to bring these ideas here to Mosul."

The futuristic servers are the result of technology developed in the northern city, erstwhile stronghold of the Islamic State jihadist group.

"We saw the concept on social media in more than one restaurant," said Abdelrahman, a dentist by profession.

Occupied by IS between 2014 and 2017, the northern metropolis of Mosul still bears the scars of war.

But at dinnertime, patrons of the restaurant that is packed every night can escape from the city on a voyage through space.

An astronaut floating across the muralled wall sets the scene and views of Earth and other planets as seen from space give customers the sense of peering out through the portholes of a spaceship.

The ceilings are speckled with glowing constellations.

But the star attractions remain the two androids, sporting a scarf and black beret, shuttling back and forth across the restaurant on rails to deliver orders.

As they approach, smartphones come out and children promptly line up next to them for a souvenir snapshot.

The robots are imported, Abdelrahman explained without giving the source, adding that everything in the restaurant is digital, including the 15 touch-screen tables with built-in menus.

A team from the University of Mosul's department of mechatronics -- integrating several fields of engineering as well as robotics -- was in charge of programming and connected a network and server to the restaurant.

Humans have not been completely replaced by machines.

Four young waiters are busy picking up the dishes from the robots' trays and placing them on the tables.

Having dinner with his wife, Bashar Mahmud was won over. He took a selfie, smiling broadly.

"I've travelled abroad and I've never seen anything like this, not in Turkey, Jordan or Saudi Arabia," exclaimed the 50-year-old blacksmith with a salt-and-pepper beard.

2021 AFP

More here:
Robot waiters take Iraq's Mosulites back to the future - FRANCE 24

The press was built during a period of time in ancient Assyria when there was growing demand for wine

Archaeologists recently excavated what they believe to be one of the oldest wine presses in the Middle East, dating back 2,700 years.

The wine press was found by Italian archaeologists in a small village in north Kurdistan region of Iraq, the first of its kind discovered in the region.

It was built during a period of time in ancient Assyria when there was growing demand for wine, according to archaeologists.

Assyria, one of the world's earliest empires, was located in most of modern-day Iraq, as well as parts of Iran, Kuwait, Syria, Turkey and Lebanon.

"This is very interesting because these wine presses do have parallels in other Assyrian sites, for instance in Lebanon," said Danielle Morandi Bonacossi, Professor of Near-Easten Archaeology at the University of Udine.

The wine press structure consists of 14 different basins in different shapes connected via small canals to storage areas that held the liquid. The resulting products were then shipped from the factory to the capital of the Assyrian empire.

The machine and factory was in use sometime between the 8th and 7th century BCE.

"The Dohuk Antiquities Authority is coordinating with the Udine University in Italy to add these sites... to the UNESCO World Heritage list so it can be prepared to receive tourists," Baikaz Gamal Eldin, Head of the Antiquities Department in Dohuk said.

Read more here:
2,700-year-old Wine Press Discovered In Northern Iraq - i24NEWS

This article originally appeared on VICE Arabia.

After decades of devastating political instability, Iraq is still in danger. The agricultural workers of the war-torn country have to wrestle with a new and equally destructive force: climate change.

In 2020, the United Nations Environment Programme declared the Middle Eastern country the fifth most vulnerable nation on Earth to the longterm effects of climate change. The cradle of civilisation is under threat from droughts and dust storms. Temperatures are rising and agriculture is an increasingly difficult proposition. Just like everywhere else on the planet, it is the poorest people in Iraqi society who are most at risk from the life-changing effects of the climate crisis.

Farmers who found themselves displaced during the 2014-2017 conflict with ISIS slowly began to rebuild their lives, only to find out that it was no longer possible to pick up their old jobs. Agricultural land across the country is in danger. Climate breakdown is here and it is wreaking havoc.

Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Syria and Turkey are to some extent dependent on water from the Tigris and Euphrates basin, which is used for domestic consumption, agricultural irrigation and for generating mighty hydroelectric power. The basin has long been a point of geopolitical tension and is now experiencing catastrophic water shortages due to global warming. While the effects of these shortages are felt across the region, it is at its worst at Lake Hamrin in Diyala, an eastern region of Iraq that sits on the border with Iran.

Lake Hamrin, an artificial river with a reservoir which is the main source of water in the province, has dried up. A dramatic drop in water levels means the lakes irrigation canals which used to supply water to the surrounding countryside cannot function. Many villages in the area have very little water for crops and livestock.

Fadhili Hamad Salem, a 34-year-old farmer from Diyala, lost all of his grapes as a result of high temperatures this summer. He says that even after he sold his car to pay for a new well, the water he has access to is insufficient. We work in agriculture to feed our children, but this year, it was much more difficult than in the past years, he says. All the land died due to lack of water supply. We cut half our personal and family expenses to keep the farm alive.

The lack of water is directly linked to the soaring temperatures caused by the climate crisis. In Iraq, temperatures this summer reached 51 degrees celsius, and the average temperature has risen by 2.3 degrees celsius since the end of the 19th century twice what the rest of the world has witnessed.

In October this year, Iraq's agriculture ministry announced that it was reducing the area of land used for winter crop planting by 50 percent in an attempt to preserve water. None of this land is in Diyala, and farmers in the province will remain reliant on the regions 160 wells for both irrigation and drinking water.

Farmers across the region are facing up to the difficult fact that their way of life is in imminent danger of extinction. The crisis has affected Mohamed Al-Mayahi's drinking water supply and has killed 20 percent of his flock of sheep his main source of income. He is contemplating leaving his land and life as a farmer to find another job.

We lost about 20 of our sheep. The last five months were very difficult as there was no water at all, says Al-Mayahi. A lot of the sheep died as there is no water to drink, and the water has a bitter taste. This is the land of my father and grandfather, but if things continue like this we will have to leave.

Having been displaced for three years as a result of the war with ISIS, and then returned to Diyala, 49-year-old farmer Mohamed Adnan is considering moving on again. This is the hardest year weve ever been through, he says. Due to the lack of usable water, we havent been able to harvest anything this season. I live on farming and everything is dying. It wasnt like this a few years ago - water was never a problem before.

Ahmed Ashkiti Ajil, a 51-year-old farmer and rancher, is just as desperate. All my sheep are dead because of the lack of water. The only source we have left is salty, he says. "I never expected there would be no rain or water. If I had known it would end like this, I would have sold the sheep and worked in another career, but there are no jobs anyway. This is our land and we will stay here and die here.

The agriculture industry accounts for nearly 20 percent of the Iraqi workforce. It is the second largest contributor to the countrys GDP after oil. The ongoing water scarcity crisis will have ramifications for the country on social and economic levels.

On a financial level, it is causing problems in the here and now. Fatima Awad Saleh, 60, is a mother in rural Diyala whose farm and property were attacked during the war with ISIS, causing two of her daughters to have permanent disabilities. These require financial costs in addition to the familys regular, ongoing bills, which she simply cant afford.

Farmers in poor rural areas in Iraq are likely to continue to be severely affected by water shortages caused by climate breakdown and ineffective water management. Many farmers say that if things continued as they are, they would not want their children to work in agriculture, but rather encourage them to find other, more stable jobs.

Natiq Jassem Sabiya is a case in point. The 60-year-old farmer from Diyala wanted to pass on the farming traditions he had inherited from his grandfather to his two sons, but they had to find work to help with the expenses. We used to produce different types of wheat and vegetables but didn't grow anything this year. I inherited this land from my grandfather. But there is simply no more water for farming.

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The Climate Crisis Is Wreaking Havoc on Farmers in Iraq - VICE