PARIS – TotalEnergies (NYSE: TTE), the French oil major, has begun building a gas processing facility in Iraq, it said on Friday, the first portion of a massive multi-energy project aimed at reducing the country’s import bill and attracting foreign investment.
ArtawiGas25 will process 50 million cubic feet of gas per day from the Ratawi field, which is currently flared or burned off. The company said that the gas would then supply local plants to power 200,000 households in the Basra region.
The facility represents a $250 million investment, part of a total $10 billion to be spent by Total over four years. It will create up to 160 direct and indirect jobs during the construction phase and 30 permanent positions once operational.
In 2023, TotalEnergies (NYSE: TTE) announced a deal with Iraq on a $27 billion project to collect gas for electricity, increase oil production, treat seawater to use in the water-intensive oil production processes, and build a 1 Gigawatt solar park.
Iraq’s government has said the solar park and first gas processing plant would be completed in 2025.
Construction on the solar project is due to begin in several weeks.
Iraq hopes the projects will attract fresh foreign investment into its energy sector, which has not been forthcoming since a flurry of post-U.S.-invasion deals over a decade ago.
Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM), Shell (NYSE: SHEL), and BP (NYSE: BP) have all scaled back their operations in Iraq in recent years, contributing to a stagnation in oil production.
TotalEnergies is a project operator with a 45% ownership share, alongside the national Basra Oil Company (30%) and QatarEnergy (25%).
