Iraq’s Mineral Wealth
Oil, gas, phosphate, sulphur, silica sand and clays: where they are, the rocks that hold them, how much there is and what they are used for in Iraq and the world.
An atlas of six of Iraq’s main earth resources. For each one it maps the fields, mines, plants and producing areas, explains the geology of the host formations and their ages, gives the latest published reserves, capacities and production with their year, and sets out the uses inside Iraq and in the world economy, with the main challenges and opportunities. Each resource has its own printable map and chart.
Overview
Iraq is known for its oil, but it also holds one of the world’s largest phosphate resources, more than half of the world’s known sedimentary native sulphur, and large deposits of glass sand and industrial clays in the Western Desert. This section gathers what geologists, students and investors most often ask about them in one place, in Arabic and English.
What you enter · What you get
What you enter
- The resource to show
What you get
- Map of fields, mines, plants and areas
- Reserves, capacities and production with their year
- Geology of the host formations
- Uses in Iraq and in the world
- Challenges and opportunities
How it works in the field
Method and equations
Figures
Reserves and production are the latest official or peer-reviewed figures available, each shown with its year; where estimates differ, the range is given. Reserve categories follow the Iraqi Geological Survey (A, B, C1, C2) for industrial minerals and proven reserves for oil and gas.
Locations
Oil and gas fields and the main mines are placed at their published coordinates; producing areas and formations that crop out over large regions are shown as approximate areas.
Accuracy and error limits
- Reserve figures are estimates that change with exploration and with prices; official oil and gas reserves are not independently audited, and industrial-mineral reserves in categories C1–C2 are inferred from limited drilling. Production of the state mining companies has varied greatly since 1991 and some plants are idle, so capacities are not output.
- What is not covered: other resources (iron, salt, gypsum, limestone, building stone, uranium, groundwater), field-by-field reserves, and the boundaries of licences. Areas drawn as circles are indicative only.
- To reduce the error: use the year shown with each figure, check the latest reports of the ministries and the Iraqi Geological Survey before quoting a number, and use the national geological map for the exact extent of a deposit.
Who uses it
Standards and references
- Jassim, S.Z. & Goff, J.C. (eds.) (2006). Geology of Iraq. Dolin, Prague and Moravian Museum, Brno.
- Aqrawi, A.A.M., Goff, J.C., Horbury, A.D. & Sadooni, F.N. (2010). The Petroleum Geology of Iraq. Scientific Press, Beaconsfield.
- Ministry of Oil, Republic of Iraq (2025). Statement on proven oil (about 145 billion barrels) and gas (about 132 trillion cubic feet) reserves, 9th OPEC International Seminar, Vienna, July 2025 (reported by Shafaq News).
- Iraq Oil Report (2026). Iraqi production rises in 2025 as OPEC-plus eases quotas, 25 January 2026.
- Rudaw (2025). Gas flaring: a field-by-field and province-by-province analysis in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, 9 April 2025 (2023 flaring data).
- Global Energy Monitor (2025). Global Oil and Gas Extraction Tracker: Rumaila, West Qurna, Majnoon, Zubair, Halfaya, Kirkuk, Akkas, Mansuriyah and Khor Mor fields.
- Al-Bassam, K.S. (2017). Geology of the phosphorite deposits of Iraq. Iraqi Bulletin of Geology and Mining, Special Issue 7.
- Ministry of Industry and Minerals (2026). New phosphate project in Al-Qaim (reported by BC Insight, 29 January 2026).
- U.S. Geological Survey (2019). 2016 Minerals Yearbook: Iraq. USGS, Reston.
- Mishraq Sulphur State Company (2021). Statement on sulphur reserves (reported by Shafaq News, 18 March 2021); public–private partnerships for Mishraq-1 and Al-Lazzaka-2 (Iraq Business News, 1 June 2026).
- Agha, W.A. & Al-Ani, T.M. (2019). The silica sand deposits in the Western Desert of Iraq: an overview. Iraqi Bulletin of Geology and Mining.
- The kaolin clay deposits in the Western Desert of Iraq: an overview; Bentonite and smectite-rich shale deposits of Iraq; Palygorskite deposits and occurrences in Iraq: an overview. Iraqi Bulletin of Geology and Mining, Special Issue (2019).
- The National (2022). Iraq scrambles to revive its once world-leading fertiliser industry, 29 July 2022.
At a glance
- Category
- Field geology
- Runs on
- Phone, tablet and desktop browser
- Export
- Resource map and chart as PNG, JPG and PDF; site list as CSV; full PDF report
- Access
- Free
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