The Iraqi Ministry of Oil’s (MOO) state-run South Refineries Co. has let a contract to JGC Group of Japan subsidiary JGC Holdings Corp. to provide engineering, procurement, construction, and commissioning (EPCC) for a series of new units to be built as part of a modernization and upgrading project at the operator’s 233,000-b/d refinery in Basrah, about 550 km southeast of the capital of Baghdad.
As part of the lump-sum contract, JGC will deliver EPCC services for a new fluid catalytic cracking unit (FCCU), vacuum distillation unit (VCU), and diesel desulfurization unit, among others, that will be installed on land adjacent to the refinery’s existing operations, the service provider said.
Without identifying other units to be installed as part of the Basrah refinery upgrading project (BRUP), JGC confirmed major units to be installed under the contract will have the following processing capacities:
- FCCU; 34,000 b/d.
- VDU; 55,000 b/d.
- Diesel desulfurization unit; 40,000 b/d.
Scheduled to be completed in 2025, the BRUP—which is positioned as spearheading the modernization of Iraq’s entire refining sector—will enable the Basrah refinery to increase production of gasoline to 19,000 b/d and diesel to 36,000 b/d, helping Iraq to reduce its reliance on petroleum product imports with domestic supply of fuels meeting global environmental standards, JGC said.
Alongside providing EPCC services under the contract, JGC also plans to conduct skills training for more than 1,000 Iraqis and to hire about 7,000 skilled Iraqi workers, helping to contribute to solving the country’s unemployment problem.
Funding for the BRUP will be procured through Japanese official development assistance loans from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and will be the largest-scale reconstruction assistance from Japan since the 2003 Iraq war, JGC said.
With a confirmed crude oil reserve of 145.00 billion bbl and a daily crude production of 4.41 million bbl, Iraq’s only two refineries currently in operation were built in the 1970s, with production capacity at both sites decreased as a result of war damage and deterioration, according to JGC.
According to the latest statistical data available from the Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), MOO’s Iraq National Oil Co. (INOC), through its subsidiaries, operates a total of 15 refineries across the country that, in 2019, were equipped with the following processing capacities:
- Baiji; 33,000 b/d.
- Basrah; 233.000 b/d.
- Daura; 140,000 b/d.
- Kirkuk; 30,000 b/d.
- Sainia; 30,000 b/d.
- Najaf; 30,000 b/d.
- Samawa; 30,000 b/d.
- Nasiria; 30,000 b/d.
- Missan; 30,000 b/d.
- Diwania; 20,000 b/d.
- Haditha; 16,000 b/d.
- Qaiarah; 14,000 b/d.
- Kask; 7,000 b/d.
- Kar; 80,000 b/d.
- Bazyan; 38,000 b/d.
