The State Company for Oil Projects (SCOP), under the supervision of the Ministry of Oil of Iraq, has invited bids to finance and build the first stage of an oil pipeline project stretching from the southern city of Basra to Aqaba on the Red Sea in Jordan.
The 350-km-long pipeline will ship 2.25 mb/d and will have a parallel gas pipeline. Bids are due by 25 December 2016 and a bidding round should be held in the first quarter of 2017. Construction works should start in 2018 and be completed in 2020. Iraq aims to export 1 mb/d of crude oil to Jordan, of which 150,000 bbl/d should supply the Zarqa refinery in Jordan, the remainder exported from the port of Aqaba.
The first section of the Basra-Aqaba pipeline will pass through the Anbar province; initial plans to pass through the Haditha pumping station in Anbar have been revised due to the presence of Islamic State militants in the desert area. These militants had already delayed an US$18bn export pipeline to Jordan (Iraq had pre-qualified 12 companies and consortia in 2013).