Basra Oil Company, a state-owned Iraqi oil company, has announced that France-based energy giant TotalEnergies has activated its four contracts. These are aimed at investing in projects related to seawater desalination, gas and oil production and renewable energy. Bassim Abdul Karim Al-Shamkhani, the Director General of Basra Oil Company, said that the two companies are now contractually committed to implementing the project.
The deal was originally signed in 2021, but disputes over contractual terms have delayed implementing it. The Chairman and CEO of TotalEnergies, which makes the Total coolant and grease products, said at the time that the deal heralded the company’s return to Iraq, the country where it was born in 1924, adding:
“Our ambition is to assist Iraq in building a more sustainable future by developing access to electricity for its people through a more sustainable use of the country’s natural resources such as: reduction of gas flaring that generates air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, water resource management and development of solar energy.”
A breakthrough was made this year in July, when the relevant parties signed a new deal that saw the Iraqi government take a smaller stake than it originally expected. With the deal now activated, TotalEnergies, together with partners Basra Oil Company and QatarEnergy, can move forward with realising the projects. These include a 1GW solar power facility to supply the Basra grid, a water treatment unit to boost the water-injection capacity of fields in southern Iraq, and a new network to gather and treat currently flared gas, so it can be used by power stations to generate electricity.
