KRG ministry labels phasing out gas flaring ‘top priority’

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) remains very committed to curbing gas flaring to a minimum despite missing its deadline and it is the natural resources ministry’s “top priority” to phase out the process, its deputy minister told Rudaw English on Monday. 

The flaring process is when oil wells burn the excess gas they cannot store or use, and is considered a convenient way to deal with the waste product known as associated petroleum gas. The process, however, is among the main reasons for global climate change. 

Iraq is notorious for the deadly and toxic practice of gas flaring. It is second only to Russia in terms of the amount of gas burned off, though the Iraqi population lives on average much closer to the flaring sites than Russians do. 

“The KRG has on their agenda to cut the flaring to a bare minimum. It is our ministry’s top priority,” Ahmed Mufti, KRG deputy minister of natural resources, told Rudaw English during the Kurdistan-Britain and Europe Business Council (KBE) Forum in Erbil. 

Mufti hailed the KRG’s progress in curbing the destructive practice, explaining that the idea of “zero flaring is impossible in the oil and gas industry,” with the government instead focused on minimum flaring rather than the phenomenon of completely ending the practice. 

“Kurdistan is very successful - and I claim the word successful - by managing its flaring, by mitigating the flare to a minimum level within the possibilities and capabilities we have,” he said. 

The KRG failed to meet its own gas flaring directive deadline, which was set for earlier this year, as the progress was slowed by late payments to international oil companies (IOCs) working in the Region and the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. 

“In 2020, we were very much able to cut 40 million scf and convert it to 160 mW [for electricity] – that is a milestone,” Mufti continued, praising the Region’s progress regardless. 

The World Bank estimates that Iraq flares around 17 billion cubic meters of gas every year, worth around $8 billion annually. The practice causes severe environmental damage and remains a serious risk to the wellbeing of people living close to flaring sites, from Basra to the Kurdistan Region, where refugee camps are particularly vulnerable.

A BBC investigation last year found that there is a direct link between gas flaring and increasing cancer rates.

“Flaring is very serious. It is not only [serious] for the refugee camps [near oil refineries], but also for the population around the villages near the industry,” said Mufti. “It is a fact that flaring causes diseases, because it is a poison gas.” 

Flaring also releases toxic pollutants which are known to harm human health, such as benzene, which is a carcinogen that is known to cause leukemia. Communities living near flared gas sites are at particular risk because they emit a deadly mix of carbon dioxide, methane, and black soot, which is highly polluting. 

In July 2021, then-KRG Minister of Natural Resources Kamal Atroshi ordered all companies in the Kurdistan Region to cease the environmentally harmful practice with “immediate effect,” saying “it is illegal to flare a single [cubic] foot [of gas]” and setting a deadline of 18 months to tackle the issue.

However, Atroshi resigned in May of last year, and his role has been covered in the interim by KRG Minister of Electricity Kamal Muhammad Salih. The deadline issued by the former minister was to no avail, as 22 months later, the process continues to seriously deteriorate the environment on the outskirts of the Region’s cities and the countryside.

During the forum, Mufti repeatedly stressed the need to combat the ever-growing threat that a changing climate poses on Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, and while the deputy minister praised the KRG’s progress against gas flaring and labeled the quantity of the poisonous gas “very low,” he suggested other means to fight climate change, such as efficiently using vehicles and reducing the reliance on fuel for transportation.

In the Kurdistan Region, however, public transport remains underdeveloped, with the lack of railway, adequate busses, tram, metro, and other means of public transport largely swaying people towards owning and depending on private vehicles. 

Falah Alamri, former director general of Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO), said that the process of gas flaring began in Iraq in the 1980s during a time of war and economic blockades. 

“Iraq in the 1980s began flaring gas. Before that, there was no flaring of gas. However, the wars and the economic blockade that it went through made the situation difficult,” Alamri said. 

“Gas flaring in Iraq is supposed to completely end in 2026,” he added. 

Iraq’s former environment minister Jassim al-Falahi praised Iraq’s attempts to diversify away from oil and said that Baghdad needs to implement agreements that were previously sealed. 

“We do not need loans or funds, but we just need to implement what we had agreed on,” Falahi, who also currently serves as the deputy environment minister, said. “The citizens need to be as conscious as the authorities [in tackling climate change].” 

In October, Falahi told the BBC that pollution from oil production is the main reason for increases in local cancer rates in Basra.

Ali Hussein Jaloud, a 21-year old Iraqi who lived next to one of BP’s largest oil fields near the southern Iraqi town of Rumaila, died on April 21 of leukemia, a disease that was largely attributed by him and his family to the pollution from the flared gas that surrounds their community. 

Ali died days before he could challenge BP’s CEO on the dangers of gas flaring. Don’t let his death be in vain. #AliHusseinJaloud https://t.co/EN2SWZNha2

— Northumberland Climate and Nature (@GreenerN_land) April 27, 2023

The US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on the Iraqi government following his death to “start by moving beyond simply acknowledging the problem to enacting and enforcing tight restrictions to restrict flaring” and make polluters compensate communities affected by the deadly practice.

“To address the full harm to local communities and the global climate, the government should transition away from fossil fuels,” said HRW senior researcher Antonia Juhasz. 

As the KRG’s hands remain tied with its oil exports halted by an Iraq-Turkey arbitration row, it remains yet to be seen whether oil companies in the Region can successfully reduce the practice in the short-term.

“Cutting flares is not a button that you press and it gets cut,” Mufti concluded. 

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