OPEC oil producer Iraq is planning to expand its refinery in the Northern Kirkuk Governorate within a post-war scheme to rehabilitate its upstream and downstream hydrocarbon industry, its Governor was quoted on Friday as saying.

Rakan Al-Jabouri said the project was ordered by Oil Minister Hayan Adbul Ghani along with expansion plans in other refineries in OPEC’s second largest oil producer.

“During his recent visit to the Governorate, the Oil Minister instructed the concerned authorities to conduct studies for the expansion of Kirkuk Refinery...the project could include the installation of a new production unit,” Jabouri said, quoted by the National Iraqi News Agency.

He did not mention the planned capacity increase, but Iraq has plans to list its refining output by nearly 150,000 barrels per day (bpd) by end-2023.

Sitting atop the world’s fifth largest recoverable crude deposits, Iraq has an installed refining capacity of nearly 1.1 million bpd but actual production is far lower.

(Writing by Nadim Kawach; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@lseg.com)

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