Iraq has just announced that they are planning to build new refining units at their northern facilities at both Qaraya and Baiji refineries. The announcement came during an inspection of the old refinery by Oil Minister Ihsan Ismael today.
The Qaraya refinery was built in 1995 south of Mosul and can only produce about 20,000 barrels per day (bpd) and is being operated by the state-owned North Refineries Company. It used to process heavy oil from the nearby Qaraya oil field but has long since stopped operating after it has suffered heavy damages when Islamist militant group Isis set a number of oil wells on fire before it was recaptured in 2017.
This project is part of the oil ministry's plan to boost the country's refining capacity to 1.5 million bpd by 2022. At present the oil country's capacity is just around 875,000 bpd and has been constantly struggling to produce enough oil products to meet its own growing domestic demand.
Most of Iraq's targets in setting up more refineries have failed to gather investors and so far has only managed to progress on one, the 140,000 bpd Karbala refinery. Even that will be funded entirely by the Iraqi government which they hope to complete by the year 2023.