UPDATE: Gharraf field offline after coronavirus evacuation
Petronas issued the following statement about the Gharraf evacuation Wednesday evening:
In view of the COVID-19 pandemic and as a precautionary measure to ensure the health, safety and well-being of our employees, PETRONAS has safely evacuated all 80 of our Malaysian employees from PETRONAS Carigali Iraq Holding B.V.(PCIHBV), located at the Garraf Contract Area, in the Thi Qar Province, Republic of Iraq.
This is certainly an unfortunate and unforeseeable event that is not within PCIHBV’s control. PCIHBV had accordingly issued the necessary notice in accordance with the provisions of the Development and Production Service Contract and engaged with the host authority prior to the suspension of operations and evacuation of our employees. Operations at the Garraf Contract Area are now temporarily suspended until further notice.
We are also closely monitoring the situation.
NASSIRIYA - Workers from Malaysian state oil firm Petronas were evacuated from the Gharraf oil field in Dhi Qar province on Tuesday, a precautionary measure due to the spread of the new coronavirus (COVID-19), which effectively has shut down the field for now.
The loss of Gharraf, which produced 60,000 barrels per day (bpd) in February, down from an average of 95,000 bpd in 2019, will not necessarily affect Iraq's overall output. Several state-operated fields have been pumping far below capacity for over a year.
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