Oil & Gas Much-delayed Kirkuk refinery deal signed by Iraq By Nadim Kawach January 31, 2025, 4:04 PM Rania Group Iraq's Rania Group is to build the first oil refinery in Kirkuk Rania Group to be builder Target of 760,000 bpd First refinery in Kirkuk Iraq has finally signed a deal to build a refinery in the oil-rich Kirkuk province, nearly eight years after it first unveiled the project. It will be built by Iraq’s Rania Group, which is based in Sulaymaniah in the northern autonomous Kurdistan region and has vast operations in the country. The refinery is intended to produce 70,000 barrels per day (bpd). Kirkuk’s governor, Rebwar Taha, said after signing the contract on Thursday that the project is located near the North Gas Company, southeast of Kirkuk. Taha did not disclose contract details apart from saying it was awarded as an “investment project”, according to Aliqtsad News, “This project involves the construction of the first oil refinery in Kirkuk. It will supply the province with various refined products and export the surplus,” Taha said. Iraq’s oil minister in October 2017, Jabar Ali Hussein al-Luaibi, announced plans to build the refinery and to develop oil fields to increase output to more than one million barrels a day. Foreign firms were invited to help deliver the projects. British Petroleum signed a memorandum of understanding with Iraq in 2024 for the development of oil and gas fields in Kirkuk, which has until now relied on the Baiji refinery in the nearby Saladin province. Iraq, Opec’s second largest oil producer, has been in a massive post-war programme to rehabilitate its hydrocarbon sector. Iraq makes huge oil discovery but faces Opec restrictions Iraq proposes moving one of its oldest oil refineries Assad’s fall spurs calls to revive Iraq-Syria oil pipeline The plan targets oil and gas oilfields and the construction of new refineries and petrochemical plants in a bid to halt imports of such products. “A country producing 4 million barrels of oil cannot continue importing refined products,” Iraq’s prime minister, Mohammed Al-Sudani, declared earlier this month. In 2023, Iraq invited investors to build seven oil refineries around the country. The first three projects were a 50,000 bpd plant in the southeastern Maysan governorate, a 70,000 bpd refinery in Nineveh governorate in north Iraq, and a unit in Basra in the south with a capacity of 30,000 bpd. The other three projects for April include a 50,000 bpd refinery in the southern Dhi Qar governorate, a 100,000 bpd unit in Wasit in east Iraq and one with a capacity of 70,000 bpd in Muthanna in south Iraq. The seventh refinery has a capacity of 70,000 bpd and is in the western Alanbar governorate. Officials said in 2024 that expansions would boost Iraq’s refining output capacity to at least 1.26 million bpd, which is expected to grow sharply after the completion of new projects.