Iraq needs $4 billion for new investments in its downstream oil industry, Oil Minister Jabar al-Luaibi said on Tuesday, outlining plans to expand refining capacity over the next several years, Reuters reports.
Speaking at a conference on reconstruction of the war-torn country, he also said Iraq planned to boost its crude oil production capacity to 7 million barrels per day by 2022, from 5 million bpd at present.
Luaibi said the downstream investment would lift refining capacity to 1.5 million bpd by 2021, with 500,000 bpd of that earmarked for export.
The increase in refining capacity would come from seven projects, some of them new and some involving expansion of existing refineries.
Some would be turnkey projects, in which contractors would hand over facilities to Iraq, while others would be build-operate-transfer deals in which private firms would receive concessions to operate facilities.