Iraq considers silica investment in Al-Anbar to expand non-oil sectors
Shafaq News- Al-Anbar
Iraq’s Al-Anbar is weighing strategic projects to invest in the province’s silica reserves, aiming to shift from raw exports to value-added industries and reduce dependence on oil income, local officials told Shafaq News on Friday.
Adnan Al-Kubaisi, a member of the Al-Anbar Provincial Council, told Shafaq News that the province’s silica remains underutilized despite ranking among the world’s leading reserves of high-purity silica. He noted that purity levels exceed 98% and reach 99% in some locations, among the highest grades required for advanced technological industries.
Discovered reserves currently stand at around 600 million tons, with expectations that the figure could rise to one billion tons or more. However, meaningful investment requires adequate infrastructure and long-term security stability in extraction areas, as well as closer coordination between the Al-Anbar authorities and the government to launch strategic projects, rather than limiting activity to selling raw material at low prices.
Economist Ahmed Al-Karbouli told Shafaq News that the main challenges include the absence of advanced downstream industries, weak industrial infrastructure, administrative complexities, and investor hesitation driven by security and procedural concerns.
Establishing national factories to convert silica into advanced industrial products would create thousands of jobs and reduce Iraq’s dependence on oil revenues, he said, noting that processing raw silica into finished products would position Iraq as a significant player in global technology and renewable energy supply chains.
High-purity silica is a key input in strategic industries such as electronic chips, artificial intelligence processors, solar panels, and fiber-optic cables, with specialists warning that continued export of the material in raw form represents a significant economic loss, as its price rises from about $120 per ton to more than $20,000 per ton once processed into industrial silicon or electronic products.
