Still struggling to overcome the draining consequences of almost ceaseless conflict and political haggling, Iraq has nevertheless managed to overcome the worst of the 2020 oil market slump in its upstream sector. It demonstrated sufficient subtlety with its Kurdish exports and has more or less reined in its OPEC+ non-compliance antics, to avoid the ire of leading crude exporters. Yet as Baghdad and other Iraqi cities put up with the intense August heat when temperatures are routinely above 45 °C, Iraqi authorities have started to chart a pathway for the Arab nation’s downstream segment, too – albeit a bit too ambitious given the conditions of today’s Iraq; one might argue that staying realistic is the best Baghdad can do. Iraq’s only fully functional refinery is located in Shuaiba near the Basrah hub of crude production, where a 210kbpd refinery is serving the product needs of the south. Under normal […]