Majnoon Island is an island in southern Iraq near Al-Qurnah that is a center for oil production of the Majnoon Oilfield. The area was built out of sand dunes and mud to create pathways for oil pipelines.
Before the Gulf War, roughly a sixth of Iraq's oil reserves, some 7 million barrels (1,100,000 m3), passed through this island. Production quickly recovered after the site was a center of fighting in the Iran-Iraq War, particularly Operation Kheibar in 1984. However, following the imposition of United Nations sanctions and the 2003 Iraq War, production has presently reduced to 46,000 barrels per day (7,300 m3/d).
In December 2009, the Iraqi government awarded a license to a joint venture from Royal Dutch Shell and Petronas to take over operations at Majnoon Oilfield, and triple production from the estimated reserve of 13 billion barrels (2.1×109 m3) at a fee rate of $1.39/barrel. The joint venture company is 25% held by the Iraqi Ministry of Oil, 45% by Shell and 30% by Petronas.
Famous quotes containing the word island:
“We crossed a deep and wide bay which makes eastward north of Kineo, leaving an island on our left, and keeping to the eastern side of the lake. This way or that led to some Tomhegan or Socatarian stream, up which the Indian had hunted, and whither I longed to go. The last name, however, had a bogus sound, too much like sectarian for me, as if a missionary had tampered with it; but I knew that the Indians were very liberal. I think I should have inclined to the Tomhegan first.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)