French energy giant TotalEnergies is seeking a share in a new international consortium planning to build a pipeline to help export Iraqi oil to the Mediterranean, its chief executive Patrick Pouyanne has told The National.
"Total is in active discussion for a stake in the consortium that is planning to build the Basra-Baniyas pipeline," Mr Pouyanne said on Monday at a ceremony in the French presidential palace in Paris, where France and Iraq signed a series of agreements.
Sources said TotalEnergies is seeking a 10 per cent stake in the consortium, which would give it a role in developing the pipeline to provide Iraq with an alternative route for exporting crude.
Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Al Zaidi travelled to Paris on Monday before heading to Berlin as Baghdad seeks solutions to its oil export difficulties since the shut-down of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran this year after a joint US-Israeli attack.
Alternative routes
The pipeline project, which would allow Iraq to export from its southern oilfields in Basra near the Arabian Gulf to Baniyas on Syria's Mediterranean coast, and Europe and beyond, has been encouraged by the Iraqi government as an alternative export route to the Hormuz Strait.
TotalEnergies announced in August that it would join the consortium that includes US oil and gas giant Chevron, Qatari-Syrian company UCC Holding and US investment company TI Capital. Discussions to finalise the consortium's structure are continuing.
The total cost is estimated by industry experts at $15 billion. Construction is expected to take at least four years. Recent drone attacks coming from Iraq on a Saudi pipeline have highlighted the infrastructure's vulnerability.
Iraq has been exploring several pipeline projects, including the revival of a route built in the 1950s between Baniyas and Kirkuk in northern Iraq. The pipeline was built by the Iraq Petroleum Company, in which TotalEnergies’ predecessor, the Compagnie Francaise des Petroles, held a share. It has since fallen into disrepair, but at the time had a capacity of about 300,000 barrels a day.
During Mr Al Zaidi's visit, Mr Pouyanne signed a preliminary agreement with Iraq's Ministry of Electricity Ali Wahib for TotalEnergies to strengthen Iraq's supply of liquefied natural gas. Other agreements struck between Baghdad and Paris dealt with defence, data infrastructure and civil aviation.
Mr Pouyanne, who was in Syria in July and in Iraq in August, has insisted in the past months on the need for his company to diversify routes in the Middle East.
"As we are big producers in the Middle East, in Abu Dhabi, Iraq, our priority will be also to diversify the routes, so contributing to build pipelines to circumvent the Strait of Hormuz," he said recently in Stavanger, Norway.
