2024-02-10T09:38:41+00:00
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/ Basra Provincial Council member from Tasmeem Alliance, Sara Dhafer Al-Husseini, said on Saturday that the council intends to work on investing in the natural gas accompanying crude oil extraction operations instead of burning it, stressing that the province records thousands of cancer cases annually, as a result of environmental pollution resulting from oil projects.
Al-Husseini revealed to Agency that there are moves to start joint cooperation between the public and private sectors to reduce pollution by investing in the gas burned in oil wells within the borders of the oil-rich province, which is located in the far south of Iraq.
She pointed out that: Investing in gas instead of burning it brings economic benefits to Basra in particular, and to Iraq in general, the most important of which is reducing gas imports from abroad, reducing environmental pollution, and thus reducing the number of cases of serious diseases, especially cancer, as well as employing workers from the province’s people.
Despite being one of the most prominent oil countries in the Middle East, Iraq suffers from a chronic shortage of gas, of which it imports large quantities from Iran, while the gas associated with the extraction of oil that could be used is burned.
Iraq is among nine countries responsible for the majority of gas flaring, accounting for about half of global oil production. World Bank data shows that Iraq is the second-largest country in the world to use the practice after Russia and before Iran and the United States. In 2020, the volume of gas flared in Iraq amounted to 17,374 million cubic meters.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani had previously stated that his government was determined to eliminate the burning of natural gas associated with oil extraction, and to make Iraq an “actor” in the global gas market.