| Kirkuk Field | |
|---|---|
| Country | Iraq |
| Location | Baba Gurgur |
| Offshore/onshore | Onshore |
| Field history | |
| Discovery | 1927 |
| Start of production | 1934 |
| Production | |
| Estimated oil in place | 10,000 million barrels (~1.4×109 t) |
Kirkuk Field is an oilfield at Baba Gurgur ("St. Blaze" in Kurdish) near Kirkuk, Iraq. It was discovered in 1927. The Kirkuk oil field was brought into use by the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) in 1934 and has ever since remained the basis of northern Iraqi oil production with over 10 billion barrels (1.6 billion cubic metres) of proven remaining oil reserves as of 1998. After about seven decades of operation, Kirkuk still produces up to 1 million barrels per day (160,000 cubic metres per day), almost half of all Iraqi oil exports. Oil from the Kirkuk oilfield is exported through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan Oil Pipeline, which runs to the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean Sea.
Some analysts believe that poor reservoir-management practices during the Saddam Hussein years may have seriously, and even permanently, damaged Kirkuk's oil field. One example showed an estimated 1.5 billion barrels (240 million cubic metres) of excess fuel oil being reinjected. Other problems include refinery residue and gas-stripped oil. Fuel oil reinjection has increased oil viscosity at Kirkuk making it more difficult and expensive to get the oil out of the ground.[1]