BP hits Rumaila milestone

BP and its partners in the Rumaila oilfield development project in Iraq have produced the 3 billionth barrel of oil, the company announced on Tuesday.

Working under the umbrella of the Rumaila Operating Organisation (ROO) alongside PetroChina and South Oil Company, BP achieved the production milestone in less than seven years. Since the inception of ROO in 2010, 240 wells have been drilled in Rumaila. Present output levels from the super-giant field are at a 27-year-high of 1.45 million bopd, up from around 1.34 million bopd in 2015. According to BP, the field has generated revenues of some USD 200 billion over the past 6 years.

Discovered in 1953, the field began production the following year. It reached a peak production of 1.75 million bopd 1979. Three decades of war and turmoil in Iraq degraded the field’s production facilities and infrastructure, reducing output to around 1 million bopd in 2009. The field is estimated to hold recoverable oil resources of 17 billion barrels.

Infrastructure rehabilitation work has restored treatment capacity of Rumaila’s degassing stations to some 1.8 million barrels of oil and produced water, levels last seen 37 years ago. Over the past three years, water injection capacity was expanded from a mere 60,000 bpd to 900,000 bopd through the renovation of the Qarmat Ali water treatment facility, its five associated pumping stations and linked pipeline infrastructure.