The project to develop new crude oil processing facilities at Iraq’s Rumaila field is proceeding on schedule, according to industry sources.

When it was announced, the planned plant in Mishrif Qurainat was the first new crude oil processing facility project at the oil field in 10 years.

In the fourth quarter of 2022, China Petroleum Engineering & Construction Corporation (CPECC) signed a contract for the design, procurement, construction and testing of the crude oil processing facilities.

The project scope includes developing two new oil trains, each with a capacity of 120,000 barrels a day (b/d).

The contract is valued at about $386m and construction is expected to take a total of three years to complete.

The field is the ‎second-largest producing field in the world, estimated to have about 17 billion barrels of ‎recoverable oil remaining.‎

It is operated by a joint venture launched by the UK-based oil company BP and PetroChina, the listed arm of state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation.

The name of the joint venture that operates the field is Basra Energy Company (BEC).

Along with Petrochina and BP, the Iraqi state-owned Basra Oil Company and marketing company Somo are also shareholders of BEC.

China National Petroleum Corporation controls CPECC.

Climate impact

BP has come under fire for using joint-venture companies to operate oil fields in Iraq.

The UK-based oil company omits non-operated joint ventures from its official climate impact reports, which critics say misleads investors.

In 2022, an investigation into BP’s Rumaila joint venture in Iraq found that based on its ownership of the operating company, its share of flaring for the Rumaila field was equivalent to 4.52 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2021.

This amounts to double the UK oil industry’s total flaring emissions for that year, according to an analysis by Unearthed, Greenpeace’s investigative journalism unit.

Unearthed found that if Rumaila flaring was included in BP’s official reports, its flaring figure for 2021 would be double what was officially published.