(Reuters) -A handful of independent Chinese oil companies are piling into Iraq, planning multi-billion-dollar projects to develop its vast reserves in a challenge to global and Beijing-backed state majors that dominate output in OPEC’s number two producer.
Here are details of some of the independent firms’ activities in Iraq.
UNITED ENERGY GROUP
The small Hong Kong-listed company, which produces oil and gas in Pakistan and China’s Liaohe oilfield, produces around 120,000 barrels per day of oil in Iraq’s block 9, the largest among the independents.
UEG won a license last year to explore block Fao in southern Iraq near the Kuwaiti and Iranian borders.
The company runs trading desks in Singapore, Dubai and Beijing, managed by former state oil traders.
ZHONGMAN PETROLEUM AND NATURAL GAS GROUP
Started as an oilfield service company with production assets in China and Kazakhstan, the Shanghai-listed company won licenses last year to explore the East Baghdad (North) block and Middle Euphrates block.
Zhongman Petroleum announced in June it would spend $481 million on the two blocks.
The company recently entered its first production-sharing contract to develop natural gas in Algeria.
GEO-JADE PETROLEUM
A consortium led by Geo-Jade agreed in May to invest in the South Basra integrated project that includes ramping up the Tuba oilfield in southern Iraq to 100,000 bpd and building a 200,000-bpd refinery, a rare integrated project won by a Chinese independent.
Shanghai-listed Geo-Jade has pledged to invest $848 million, with plans to revive output at the largely mothballed Tuba field to 40,000 bpd by around mid-2027.
It also plans to start pumping oil in early 2027 at block Naft Khana in central Iraq, which it won in a 2018 auction, targeting production of 15,000 bpd for 2027. The company is developing the Huwaiza field in Meysan province, aiming to pump 10,000 bpd in the second half of 2027.
Geo-Jade also owns small production assets in Kazakhstan and Albania. In 2024 it set up a trading office in Singapore led by a former oil trader at a Chinese state firm.
ANTON OILFIELD SERVICES GROUP
The Hong Kong-listed company, previously project manager and service provider at Iraq’s Majnoon oilfield, became for the first time a project operator last year, winning the license to develop the Dhufriya oilfield in Wasit province in eastern Iraq.
(Reporting by Chen Aizhu; Editing by William Mallard)
