Eni opens three plants for oil, gas and water treatment in Iraq’s Zubair field

Italian energy company Eni has opened three new plants for oil, gas and water treatment in the Zubair oil and gas field located near Bassora in Southern Iraq.

With the existing plants, the new plants have increased the oil and gas treatment capacity to 650 thousand barrels per day. The plants are positioned in the area of Hammar of Zubair and Rafydia, which have started production and exportation.

Rafydia is expected to start operations by the end of March 2016.

The water injection capacity of 300 thousand barrels per day at these plants is crucial for Zubair’s hydrocarbons production boost and will enable an increase in the usage of the associated gas.

Currently, the field has a production capacity of 360 thousand barrels per day with plans to achieve 850 thousand barrels per day over the next few years.

The onshore oil field was discovered by Basrah Petroleum Company in 1949 and contains 4.5 billion barrels of proven reserves.

A consortium comprising Eni (32.81%), Oxy (23.44%), Kogas (18.75%) and Missan Oil Company (25%) redeveloped the project. The consortium was awarded the field license in October 2009 for 25 years.

Eni operates Zubair on behalf of Iraqi state company South Oil Company (SOC). The company’s equity production in 2015 was 40,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.