Theoretically, there is no reason why Iraq cannot become one of the leading producers of petrochemicals in the world, given its tremendous reserves of oil and gas. Finally, with a relatively low oil price complex and its crude exports falling in October, Iraq appears to be making some advances on moving its long-stalled push into the petchems sector forward. Earlier this week, Iraq’s Ministry of Oil (MoO) made public that Baghdad is to go ahead with a range of projects that will add around 790,000 barrels per day (bpd) of refining capacity to the current nameplate capacity of around 1 million bpd, although its effective capacity is around 650,000 bpd. This particular expansion would come from both adding a new refining unit at the Karbala facility and new facilities at Kirkuk (capacity 70,000 bpd), Wasit (140,000 bpd), Nasiriyah (140,000 bpd), Basra (140,000 bpd), and Al Fao (300,000 bpd). However, […]