Al-Anbar opens for business: Gas draws new investment
Shafaq News- Baghdad
Al-Anbar province, a vast desert expanse in western Iraq that bore the brunt of the country's post-2003 insurgency and later ISIS’s territorial control, is positioning itself as a frontier for gas investment, with two major energy developments converging this week to signal a shift in its economic fortunes.
Muayad al-Dulaimi, spokesperson for the al-Anbar provincial government, confirmed to Shafaq News that Schlumberger, the US-based oilfield services giant, has resumed operations at the Akaz gas field (Akkas) this week, ending a suspension forced by military tensions between the United States and Iran earlier this year. The company withdrew in March 2025 after foreign firms operating in the field began a precautionary evacuation amid a volatile security environment, according to an al-Anbar provincial council source who spoke to Shafaq News at the time.
Al-Dulaimi confirmed that there are no security obstacles to investment in the province. The challenges facing projects, he added, are financial and administrative, “rooted in bureaucratic complications from Baghdad's investment authority and the bodies responsible for issuing licenses under the licensing rounds.”
Akaz, a non-associated gas field in western al-Anbar, holds an estimated 5.6 trillion cubic feet of proven reserves and carries a production target of 400 million standard cubic feet per day under a long-term development plan. Iraq's Ministry of Oil signed a contract with Schlumberger in July 2025 to accelerate development of the field, with an initial output goal of 100 million standard cubic feet per day. Gas produced at the site is designated for the al-Anbar power plant, currently under construction.
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New Investment
Running parallel to Schlumberger's return, al-Dulaimi announced that KAR Group, a privately held Kurdish energy conglomerate headquartered in Erbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan, is nearing the launch of the largest gas investment project in Anbar's history.” KAR secured the Al-Khliesiea gas exploration block in Iraq's sixth licensing round in May 2024, awarded by the Ministry of Oil. The block spans approximately 8,167 square kilometers, straddling the al-Anbar-Nineveh border near Iraq's frontier with Syria, and contains one exploratory well that has returned positive gas indicators.
Al-Dulaimi said the provincial government has pledged full facilitation to the executing company, citing the project's importance to local employment and economic development.
Al-Khliesiea is one of ten hydrocarbon blocks distributed across al-Anbar and adjacent provinces. The broader portfolio includes the al-Anbar, Ana, Al-Anz, North Rutba, South Rutba, Tubal, Al-Waleed, Al-Qurainan, and Akaz blocks, a concentration of untapped gas potential that Iraqi officials have long struggled to attract foreign capital to develop.
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Bureaucracy is the Real Barrier
Economic analyst Ahmed al-Karbouli, speaking to Shafaq News, said the return of major companies such as Schlumberger points to improving business conditions in Iraq, but also exposes structural weaknesses in economic governance. He explained that the success of any energy investment depends not only on security and stability but on legislative clarity, decision-making speed, and coordination between local and federal institutions.
Al-Karbouli argued that Iraq holds enormous investment potential in oil and gas, but that administrative complexity and licensing delays remain the most significant obstacles to attracting foreign capital. Regulatory ambiguity and jurisdictional conflicts between official bodies, he said, cause companies to withdraw or defer projects.
He called for genuine reform of the investment framework, including decentralization, a unified approvals window, and greater transparency in licensing rounds, adding that efficient management of fields such as Akaz could serve as a turning point for the Iraqi economy, generating employment, boosting national revenues, and reducing dependence on imported energy.
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Iraq is the world's second-worst gas flaring nation after Russia, according to the World Bank, and has relied on Iranian gas imports since 2017, currently at a volume of approximately one billion cubic feet per day, to meet domestic power generation needs. Baghdad has cast the sixth licensing round explicitly as a mechanism to end that dependence, prioritizing gas supply for power generation and the country's industrial, petrochemical, and fertilizer sectors.
No date has been announced for KAR Group's groundbreaking at the Al-Khliesiea block. Schlumberger's resumed operations at Akaz are subject to the development timeline set by the Ministry of Oil contract signed in July 2025.
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