BASRA, Iraq (AP) – It is almost dawn and Zainab Amjad spent the entire night working on an oil platform in southern Iraq. It lowers a sensor in the black depths of a well until the sonar waves detect the presence of the oil that feeds its country’s economy.
Elsewhere in the oil-rich province of Basra, Ayat Rawthan is overseeing the assembly of large drill pipes. They will pierce the Earth and send crucial data about the rock formations to screens a few meters away that it will decipher.
The women, both 24, are among only a handful who avoided the tedious clerical jobs normally delivered to oil engineers in Iraq. Instead, they chose to become pioneers in the country’s oil industry, wearing helmets to take on the strenuous work at drilling sites.
They are part of a new generation of talented Iraqi women who are testing the limits imposed by their conservative communities. His determination to find jobs in a historically male-dominated industry is a striking example of how a growing young population is increasingly at odds with the conservative and deeply-rooted tribal traditions that prevail in the heart of oil in southern Iraq.
The hours Amjad and Rawthan spend in the oil fields are long and the weather relentless. They are often asked what – as women – they are doing there.
“They told me the field environment that only men can endure,” said Amjad, who spends six weeks living on the platform site. “If I gave up, I would prove that they were right.”
Iraq’s fortunes, both economic and political, tend to decline and flow with oil markets. Oil sales represent 90% of the state’s revenues – and the vast majority of oil comes from the south. A drop in prices causes an economic crisis; a boom fills the state coffers. A healthy economy brings a measure of stability, while instability has often undermined the strength of the oil sector. Decades of wars, civil unrest and invasions have paralyzed production.
After low oil prices dragged down by the coronavirus pandemic and international disputes, Iraq is showing signs of recovery, with January exports reaching 2.868 million barrels a day at $ 53 a barrel, according to statistics from the Ministry of Petroleum.
For most Iraqis, the industry can be summed up by these numbers, but Amjad and Rawthan have a more granular view. Each well presents a set of challenges; some required more pressure to pump, others were loaded with poison gas. “Each camp seems to go to a new country,” said Amjad.
Given the enormous importance of the sector to the economy, petrochemical programs in engineering schools in the country are reserved for students with the highest grades. Both women were among the top 5% of their undergraduate class at Basra University in 2018.
At school, they were delighted with the drilling. For them it was a new world, with its own language: “spudding” was to start drilling, a “Christmas tree” was the top of a wellhead and “dope” meant only grease.
Each working day immerses them deeply in the mysterious activities below the earth’s crust, where they use tools to observe mineral and mud formations, until the precious oil is found. “It’s like throwing a rock into the water and studying the ripples,” explained Rawthan.
To work in the field, Amjad, the daughter of two doctors, knew that she needed to get a job at an international oil company – and to do that, she would have to stand out. State-owned companies were a dead end; there, she would be relegated to office work.
“In my free time, on my vacation, days off, I would schedule training, sign up for any program I could,” said Amjad.
When China’s CPECC came looking for new hires, it was the obvious choice. Later, when Texas-based Schlumberger sought out fixed-line engineers, it seized the chance. The job requires her to determine how much oil can be recovered from a given well. She passed one difficult exam after another to get to the final interview.
Asked if she was sure she could do the job, she said, “Hire me, watch.”
In two months, she changed her green helmet to a shiny white one, signifying her status as supervisor, no longer an intern – a month faster than normal.
Rawthan also knew that he would have to work very hard to succeed. Once, when her team had to make a rare “diversion” – drill another hole close to the original – she stayed up all night.
“I didn’t sleep 24 hours, I wanted to understand the whole process, all the tools, from beginning to end,” she said.
Rawthan now also works for Schlumberger, where he collects data from wells used to determine the drilling path later. It wants to dominate drilling and the company is a global leader in service.
Relatives, friends and even teachers were disheartening: What about hard physical work? Basra’s scorching heat? Living at the probe site for months on end? And the desert scorpions that roam the reservoirs at night?
“Many times my teachers and classmates laughed, ‘Sure, see you there,’ saying I couldn’t do it,” said Rawthan. “But it just put more pressure on me.”
His parents supported him, however. Rawthan’s mother is a civil engineer and her father, the captain of an oil tanker who used to spend months at sea.
“They understand why this is my passion,” she said. She hopes to help establish a union to bring together Iraqi engineers with similar ideas. For the time being, none exist.
The work is not without risks. Protests outside oil fields led by angry local tribes and the unemployed can stop work and sometimes turn into violence against oil workers. Faced every day with flames that point to Iraq’s obvious oil wealth, others condemn state corruption, poor service delivery and unemployment.
But women are willing to face these difficulties. Amjad barely has time to think about them: it was 11 pm and she needed to get back to work.
“Drilling never stops,” she said.