The majority of Iraqi natural gas production is flared and Iraq was the fourth largest natural gas flaring country in the world in 2010. Iraq is taking steps to reduce flaring and to use its natural gas resources in power generation and for re-injection to increase oil recovery.
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Iraqi gross natural gas production rose from 81 billion cubic feet (Bcf) in 2003 to 660 Bcf in 2011. Some of this natural gas is used as fuel for power generation, while a portion of it is re-injected to enhance oil recovery. However, the majority of Iraqi natural gas production is flared. Flaring losses in some months have exceeded 60 percent of production, or more than 1 Bcf per day, due to a lack of sufficient pipelines and other infrastructure to transport it for consumption and export. As a result, Iraq's five natural gas processing plants, which can process over 773 Bcf per year, sit mostly idle.
To reduce flaring, Iraq signed an agreement with Royal Dutch Shell to create a new joint venture, Basrah Gas Company, to capture flared gas in Basrah Province. The 25-year project costing $17 billion has a planned production capacity of up to 2 Bcf per day. Under the agreement, processed gas would go to the state-owned South Gas company for domestic use. Any gas not bought for use by Iraqi power plants could be exported as LNG.
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maybe they should re-consider declaring it, and if it happened, we will see millions marching toward Assad...
