SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Operations have resumed at the Nasiriyah oilfield in southern Iraq after a seven-day outage but Iraq’s West Qurna 2 field remains offline, Reuters cited Iraqi oil sources as saying on Saturday.
Work at Nasiriyah was halted because of protests that closed roads and stopped employees getting to work, according to Reuters.
The oilfield restarted on Friday afternoon as roads opened, allowing employees to get back to work, two Iraqi oil sources said.
The field is currently running at 50% capacity, a senior Iraqi oil official told Reuters on Saturday.
The field usually produces around 80,000 barrels per day of crude, according to the operator, Dhi Qar Oil Company.
The Nasiriyah outage coincided with a temporary maintenance shutdown which began last month at the 400,000 barrel a day West Qurna 2 oilfield.
The field, operated by Russia’s Lukoil, will remain offline until March 20, the senior Iraqi oil official said.
The outage at West Qurna 2 is a further blow to the already tight global oil supply at a time of rising demand and soaring prices.
Iraq pumped 4.18 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil in February, 150,000 bpd short of its allowed limit under an agreement with other so-called OPEC+ producers, according to data from state-owned marketer SOMO seen by Reuters.
(Esta Media Network/Reuters)
