June 25, 2009

The state-run North Oil Company will invest in 41 oil wells with a capacity of 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) in Kirkuk’s Hamreen area, the company’s director said on Thursday. “Next week, technical teams and engineers from the company will launch work on the project,” Engineer Manna Abdullah al-Ubeidi told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
The estimated completion period of the project ranges from one to two years, Ubeidi noted.

“An oil pipeline will be built between Hamreen oil fields and Ajeel field and linked to the strategic export pipeline…,” according to the director.

Kirkuk, 250 km (156 miles) north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, sits on the ruins of a 5,000-year-old settlement. Because of the strategic geographical location of the city,

Kirkuk was the battle ground for three empires, Assyria, Babylonia and Media which controlled the city at various times.

Kirkuk is the centre of the northern Iraqi petroleum industry. It is a historically and ethnically mixed city populated by Assyrians, Kurds, Arabs and Iraqi Turkmen. The population was estimated at 1,200,000 in 2008.